


Redux

by cheshirecatstrut



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Long-Term Relationship(s), Sequel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2018-12-27 17:51:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12086229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshirecatstrut/pseuds/cheshirecatstrut
Summary: The US Navy trains its pilots to deal with almost every mission-related eventuality. Unfortunately, time travel isn't covered in the manual.A Logan POV sequel to Slipstream.





	1. Everything That Kills Me Makes Me Feel Alive

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who are Slipstream readers, the 'variation' sections of this story feature the Logan and Veronica from Chapter 49, and take place @10 years later (IE about 2 years before the events of Chapter 50). For those of you who are not, don't sweat it--your assumptions about the characters are most likely correct. 
> 
> TW for non-graphic discussion of a minor character death--most fated things are happy, but a few are sad. :-(

REDUX--LOGAN--2018

It’s dark when Logan leaves the house, the morning of his first test flight. Cold, too, the outdoors much less inviting than his big, soft bed with his small, soft, still-not-a-wife in it; she’s sprawled across more than half the mattress, very slightly snoring. His feet flinch from the floorboards as he tiptoes towards the shower, shutting off the alarm before it can ring. He’s spent so many years, at this point, living by the clock, he’s internalized it.

Bathed and shaved, dressed in regulation summer whites, he pads through the house, coffee in hand, to check the locks. Peeks in on Peanut, arms-spread-asleep on her stomach just like her mother, masses of bronze hair spilling off the pillow. The dog’s curled at her feet, ignoring its own bed on the floor below.

He strokes the air above her cheek with one knuckle, so as not to wake her. Eyes shut, face still, she looks so much like his mom it weirds him out sometimes, but her personality’s all attitude and fire. Like Veronica, Peanut’s got too much spine to ever take a swan dive. Or hell, budge an inch.

Logan loves his stubborn, manipulative nine-year-old more than he thought he could love anything, back when he WAS a kid himself.

Shutting her door carefully, he polishes off the espresso and puts on his shoes. Gazes at the closed master bedroom, wondering if he should wake Veronica to kiss her goodbye. He knows she’s worried about his new job, though she won’t say so…she worries more lately than she ever did, before. And sleeps less--so he decides, better let her keep doing it. He’ll kiss her twice when he gets home, to make amends.

His convertible’s parked behind the Rover so he drives that to the base, down Silver Strand towards Ocean Boulevard and NAS North Island. Tells himself, once again, that despite how fucking weird this top-secret-mysterious-as-hell-assignment is, it’s preferable to parking Veronica and Leilani  in Lemoore, while he floats in a can overseas. Because when the baby died and things went to shit, and V demanded he transfer back to California so she could go to med school…she didn’t mean Fresno, solo. She meant HOME.

The miscarriage fucked them all up, sudden and unexpected as it was…even Peanut, who’s responded to the tension at home with typical Echolls-esque acting out. But at least HIS job addresses traumatic life events by mandating therapy. Veronica QUIT the FBI rather than discuss weakness, and won’t talk to anybody; she NEEDS Keith, Wallace, and Mac right now. So when brass of indeterminate origin offered him guaranteed non-deployment for the rest of his tour, and a gig based out of good old Coronado? They baited the hook, Logan bit.

His fiancee still won’t admit she needs anything, all these years and miles later. But she does—she needs HIM—and so does his daughter. So Logan signed the papers, rented a house by the Yacht Club, and submitted to the most rigorous round of testing he’s ever endured.

Now, at zero-dark-thirty, he’s pulling up to a hanger with no identifying markings, and hoping this particular reckless decision doesn’t end with him dead.

There are guards at the door despite the hour, armed ones--they not only check his ID, they call HQ before they let him enter.

Inside, it’s still gloomy, so he flips on the lights; stands gazing at the top-secret freaky-hybrid jet, which LOOKS just like his own personal Hornet, but goes a whole lot fucking faster. It’s a dull, nondescript grey with no insignia or tail numbers, belying its extreme importance.

He collects gear from his locker, carries it over to the cubby, strips and changes—his flight suit’s plain black, radder than standard issue, and makes him feel like a flying ninja. Grabs a clipboard off a wall peg and begins the pre-flight once-over, which he’s done so many times at this point it’s just instinct…like eating or breathing, like love. Logan hums as he works, grins when he realizes the specific thing he’s humming is ‘I Will Survive’. It’s his own black-comedy version of a prayer.

He’s just checked off  the spin switch when the door opens briefly, and in walks Walter Schnect, designer of this monstrosity—he’s accompanied by some West Coast Admiral Logan ought to recognize, but doesn’t. He climbs down from the cockpit to come to attention and salute, gets waved out of it immediately with a, “Let’s keep things moving, son.”

“How’s she doing?” Schnect asks caressingly, stroking a palm along the plane’s sleek grey nose. He’s a little bald guy, nondescript in twill slacks and a blue-plaid short-sleeved button-down. But much like Keith Mars, it would be a mistake to underestimate him.

Logan resists the urge to say, “Not as well as she’d be with me inside,” and instead chirps, “A-OK, sir!” Then adds, because he needs to sound marginally professional, “Fit as a fiddle and ready to break some records.”

“Oh, she’s revolutionary,” Schnect agrees, stepping back, arms crossed, to better gaze at his creation. “Will we be ready for the experiment at five?”

“Assuming the flight crew shows,” Logan says. “I need a little help to get this thing off the ground.”

“We’re very interested in your impressions of the test run, Lieutenant,” Admiral White-Hair says. He looks like a Southern patriarch whose aw-shucks-ing hides a venal heart, but his accent’s Main Line Philly. “Very interested. Please pay attention to every particular--you never know which details might be crucial.”

Logan lifts his brows, because if he DIDN’T pay attention during missions, he wouldn’t be standing here, breathing. But all he says is, “Roger that, sir. Permission to continue my pre-flight check, to ensure we meet Mr. Schnect’s schedule?”

“By all means,” the guy says, ever-jovial, making him safe to ignore. Logan divides his remaining prep time between doing a conscientious systems eval, and brainstorming Colonel Sanders quips to entertain Veronica later.

The flight crew belatedly arrives, swinging the hangar door open with a clang, and the well-oiled, pre-dawn Navy machine swings into action. Before Logan has a chance to get bored, or wish he had time to grab a coffee at the snack bar, he’s strapped inside the cockpit in his helmet and mask, breathing good old-fashioned canned air. And hoping he can squeeze his ass tight enough to keep from passing out at speed.

He doesn’t know much about this project, by design; but he’s aware there are three other pilots involved, all hotshots like himself, capable of threading the needle in a supersonic jet. And one of them, Brad Davies--that dickwad from the Sidewinders with an attitude to rival Logan’s--flew a mission just like this two weeks back. He’s been on desk duty, doing med evals, ever since…and seems too stressed by whatever happened to care.

Clearance comes from the tower, Logan taxis out of the hangar and down the runway, and then, abruptly, he’s airborne; all his worries fall away in the joy and concentrated precision of human-controlled flight. Icarus en-route, he thinks to himself but doesn’t say, as he arrows up towards the cloud cover and through, gaining speed.

Takes a deep breath and banks into a turn, for the final approach to target.

The Aperture is the top-secret element of this project, even more so than the souped-up jet--it hangs high over the Sonoran desert, in a region where lizards have a hard time surviving, camouflaged to match the terrain. It’s the high tech equivalent of a flaming hoop, and Logan’s Evel Knievel. His job’s to fly this Hornet at max speed through a hole four times its width and height, and live to tell the tale.

God, Veronica would kill him if she knew. She gets mad when he JOGS at night, lately, despite the fact that she insisted he learn Krav Maga.

“It’s a beautiful day in the troposphere, and I’m approaching target,” he says into the mike, descending to twenty thousand feet, speeding past a desert in bloom. It’s weirdly gorgeous, all cracked beige nothingness splashed with pink--no buildings or cell towers or signs of civilization for miles.

He thinks about Veronica, who tops the list of unexpectedly wonderful things fate brought into his life, things he probably doesn’t deserve, but never plans to give up. About Peanut, hair spread out on her pillow, as he gets a visual of the Aperture and accelerates towards it.

“Anticipating contact,” he says into the mic, his whole focus on the insanely expensive object approaching faster than the speed of sound, “in five, four, three, two…”

He hits the Aperture cleanly, exactly dead center, and feels a smug, clenched instant of satisfaction as the jet’s nose penetrates.

And then the plane, the Aperture and the desert disappear…and he’s standing on the Coronado Bridge in his black flight suit, mid-day, watching his mom pull to one side in her red Dodge Viper.

Logan’s whole body jerks—oh Jesus, he’s blacked out, he’s dead, or about to be. He staggers, goes sideways, puts his hand on a support beam, as Lynn yanks a Blackberry from her statement bag and types furiously with both thumbs. Her over-plumped lips purse with concentration, the wind whips her feathered hair into her eyes; she claws the strands back, tosses her Blackberry on the driver’s seat, and buries her face in her hands.

And it’s like he’s sixteen again, suddenly, dropped down randomly at the crux of everything that went awry. It doesn’t matter if he’s dead, if he’s ruined hard-won happiness by accepting this mission to save it. His sole purpose, in this moment, is to make sure Lynn doesn’t jump, and leave him alone with a monster.

“STOP!” he yells, flinging his helmet aside, running top-speed for the car. She shoves her door open and stands in that outdated white skirt-suit, palms flat against the concrete retaining wall. “Don’t do it, mom! Don’t you fucking dare!”

She glances up and frowns, squinting against the sunlight, like she maybe sees something but isn’t sure what. Looks down at the roiling water, far below.

His boots thud on the asphalt as he races towards her, determined to throw her in the car, kick it in gear. Drive away. Gets close enough to see her shivering in the intense wind, almost near enough to touch…

And then he’s back in the jet as his tail fin clears the aperture, and a voice in his ear is saying, “Mouth, do you copy?”

His heart’s beating a million miles a minute as he climbs and slows to regular cruising speed. Really it’s a miracle he DIDN’T crash, because what the fuck WAS that? The unconscious don’t DREAM!

“Negative,” he manages, and his voice is hoarse like he really did shout at Lynn. “I do not copy, say again, over.”

“Interrogative, have you cleared the Aperture?” the voice asks, and he huffs a half-laugh because of course they’re just worried about their idiotic fucking mission.

“Affirmative,” he says. “Dead center, at speed, exactly as planned. ETA to landing approach four minutes, over.”

Cheering breaks out on the comm and he grins; he really is spectacular, if he does say so himself. Once again, he’s somehow managed not to wind up a statistic. And if anyone wants to come for his flying record after THIS shenanigan, well…they’ve got their work cut out.

But the whole way back to the landing strip, he’s distracted by the memory/dream of his mother—squinting into the sun like she SEES him. Like he might be able to save her.

XXXXX

It’s almost ten by the time he gets his front door unlocked and himself inside. There was a general freak-out when he mentioned that fugue moment during debrief; the doc put him through every med eval for which he had a machine before they let him leave.

He expects his girls to be in bed, Peanut sleeping, Veronica studying (because since she started med school, she’s ALWAYS studying). But there’s a light on in the living room, and music drifting forth. He follows the welcoming sight and sound out of the darkened foyer, into the warmth beyond.

Their Husky’s sprawled out on the beige living room carpet, and his family’s moved to accommodate. Peanut’s head rests on his fat-despite-an-enforced-diet belly, ankle propped on the opposite knee while she reads Nancy Drew; her t-shirt bears the logo ‘I’m Dead Inside’ because she learned sarcasm early. Veronica leans against the sofa, absorbed in a textbook with the scintillating title ‘Fundamentals of Ontogeny’. The dog’s greying muzzle rests on her lap.

Logan leans against the wall to observe unseen, contentment washing through him. Remembers the night, all those years ago, he sneaked out to the porch for a break from teething-baby wailing, and spotted the dog pawing their trash can. His first thought was WOLF…but then he noticed the frayed remains of a collar.

There was a power bar in his pocket, handy between-classes snack, and he used to it lure the emaciated animal closer; he’d been where that dog was, damaged and begging for scraps, and wouldn’t wish it on a soul. He’d just dispensed a peanut-buttery bite when V came slamming through the screen door, calling, “Logan, what the hell? It’s your turn to change her, and you KNOW I’ve got a midter…”

She trailed off as the dog cringed back, and then abruptly burst into tears. Logan startled, panicking because Veronica NEVER cried, but the dog crept closer. Accepted the bar Veronica yanked from his grasp, and crawled into her lap.

“It’s LOKI,” she kept saying, laughing and sobbing at the same time while the animal tucked its head under her chin. “You don’t UNDERSTAND, it’s LOKI!”

Logan didn’t understand much, granted; but he was fully aware, in that moment, of two things. One, he hadn’t slept much in three days, and the streak looked likely to continue. And two, he’d just become a pet owner.

He has to admit, though, in retrospect--the choice to keep the dog was a good one. Loki’s placid, stolid affection, which requires no emotional confessions, and isn’t withheld for bad behavior, gets Logan’s girls through his absences relatively unscathed. Like Logan, the Husky’s just ecstatic to have a loving home…and willing to do what it takes to stay.

Loki lifts his nose, sniffing, as Logan shifts against the wall, and Veronica turns her head. Her carefully blank expression relaxes, growing genuine, and the corner of her mouth crooks in the smile that always melts him. “You’re home,” she says.

“You all looked very cozy,” he tells her, pushing off with one shoulder and climbing over the back of the couch. He flops down, supine, and kisses her cheek. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“SOMEBODY wouldn’t go to bed until you turned up and read to her,” Veronica says, as Peanut tucks her book beneath her arm and crawls over the dog onto Logan. She reclines on his chest, back to front, and he curls his arms around her. “Despite the fact that she’s too old for bedtime stories, and ALMOST bigger than her mother.”

“You don’t understand,” Peanut says dismissively; the resulting Bitchy Arched Veronica Brow makes Logan grin. “It’s a RITUAL. And Dr. Arends says I NEED rituals, right, Mom? To bring my life a sense of normalcy?”

Logan knows Veronica’s thinking ‘Dr. Arends can bite me.’ But he insisted on the shrink when things got dicey, because God knows shrinks helped HIM. And the visits have taught Peanut to verbalize, instead of jumping off the roof with an umbrella trying to ‘fly like daddy’.

Of course, verbalizing Mars-Echolls style has its drawbacks. But considering the amount of snark on both sides of the gene pool, the kid was probably always doomed.

“Normal is a distant dream in this household.” Logan drapes his daughter over his shoulder, stroking Veronica’s cheek with one finger as he stands. “But any night I’m around, story time’s a given. Come on, Leilani, upstairs. You can change into pajamas and brush your teeth while I burn that shirt.”

He waits for her in her room, sprawled across the blue, faux-fur Papasan chair; runs his thumb along the mystery’s spine while he gazes at flower-shaped twinkle lights, exhaustion sliding through him. When she emerges from the bathroom in her Hello Kitty nightgown, face scrubbed pink and curls spiraling everywhere, he feels a surge of love so deep it transcends words. He turns her gently so he can braid her hair, then pulls her onto the chair, against his side.

“Where were we?” he asks, opening the book at random. “The dognappings, right?”

“There was a girl named Mandy,” she says, tucking her head into the hollow of his shoulder. “She lived in a dream world and liked JUDY BLUME.”

“Hey, not every kid shares your advanced taste in literature.” Logan flips through the book like he’s finding his place, even though they both know it’s a sham. “OK, here we go. Nancy drove her deathtrap black convertible down to the police station, in search of her not-so-trustworthy friend-who-wanted-more, Deputy Leo…”

“I hate to break it to you,” says Peanut, who in fact LOVES to break it to him. “But Nancy doesn’t drive a black convertible. She’s got…”

“Quiet, you,” Logan tells her. “You’re no longer reading this story. ANYWAY, Nancy knew the dognappers were stealing the cutest animals, so they could sell them to the highest bidder. And she needed muscle to help carry out her daring rescue plan.”

“Why didn’t she call Ned?” Peanut asks sleepily, eyes drifting shut. “Ned ALWAYS saves her when someone needs punching.”

“Ned was playing video games and feeling conflicted,” Logan says, tossing the book aside because she’s almost crashed. There’s no point in keeping up appearances. “Because he kissed Nancy the week before, and enjoyed it a little too much. Also, his sister got herself into trouble the same day, and required Ned’s punching services instead…”

XXXXX

He dreams of his mother that night, standing by the fucking bridge railing where he also almost died, staring down. Logan runs for her, getting closer and closer, but never quite near enough to grab--he’s not real enough, not whole enough, to touch.

She turns and stares, eyes black and blank, voids in her dead, pale face. Says, “Look, Logan, I can fly.” Puts her hand on the barrier, vaults it in four-inch heels. And falls, endlessly, into the churning dark water below.

He wakes, gasping, body still and clenched from force of fucking habit; it takes him a minute to realize Veronica’s gripping his shoulder, ethereal in the moonlight. His goddess of passionate justice, ever-ready to save him with her sword.

“You were dreaming,” she says, husky voice soft and sleep-slurred. “Muttering ‘Don’t jump, I need you’. It sounded…bad.”

Logan gazes up at her delicate, beloved face and blurts the unspeakable truth. “I saw her today, Veronica. My mother. I must have blacked out for half a second, from the g’s, I guess--but it wasn’t like I was unconscious. It was like I was THERE. On the Coronado Bridge, I mean, watching her type the note. I ran towards her, I could swear she recognized me--but before I could grab her, I was back on the plane. And afterwards…the medics couldn’t find anything wrong.”

Veronica frowns, jaw clenching. “Logan, what exactly did your mission involve, today?”

He sighs. “I can’t tell you, pumpkin, you know the drill. It’s so classified even I’M not clear on the details.”

She narrows her eyes. “But you’re one hundred percent fine?”

He nods and she kisses him, tucks herself under his arm. After a long moment, during which he begins to doze, she says, “And Lynn saw you, maybe? In this dream? Like if you’d stayed just a little longer…you could have stopped her from jumping?”

“I think so,” he whispers, then shuts his mouth. Because Veronica’s a champion keeper of secrets, but he’s said too much already.

The night wears on, and Logan’s exhausted, yet he can’t bring himself to go back under. V lies quiet and perfectly still, clutching him tightly. But he’s almost completely sure she’s not sleeping, either.


	2. The Girl Is Crafty Like Ice Is Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, there, friends! It's been a year since Slipstream finished, and six months since I last posted on this--so high past time Redux kicked into gear. Therefore, without further ado, here's chapter two, AKA the Adventures of Victor. Thanks to everyone for being patient while I got my act together, and I hope you enjoy!!

REPRISE--LOGAN--2058/2006

Logan’s in his backyard hammock, enjoying a cigarette beneath a pristine sky, when the ‘must answer’ phone chime on his wristwatch sounds.

He groans, exhaling smoke towards the one puffy cumulus cloud marring perfection, and debates ignoring it. But Mac’s programmed the tiny computer to refer each number to some likely-illegal database…then rate, according to how fucked he’ll be if he doesn’t pick up. And one thing he’s sure of, after fifty-plus years of friendship with Cindy Mackenzie—her methods are invariably sound.

Bringing his forearm towards his face, he squints at the teentsy buttons (a poor match for both old eyes and large fingers) and manages to depress ‘answer’. Then lies back down and takes another drag. He needs to finish smoking and hide the evidence before Veronica comes looking.

“Hello?” The guy on the other end sounds young and annoyingly brisk, likely confused because Logan didn’t enable holo-vid. But he’s not projecting his 3-D image onto some stranger’s desk like every dumb twenty-something hipster, and he could give a shit how cantankerous that makes him seem. He’ll be seventy fucking years old on March thirtieth, he’s earned his quirks the hard way. “Captain Echolls, sir? Have I got the right number?”

“Speaking,” Logan says, then coughs when his voice cracks. Hopes this isn’t yet another request to dust off the old uniform for some dog-and-pony show. He had his fill of being a status-seeker’s prop well before he could vote. “Who wants to know?”

“Sir, my name is David Shelby, I was given your number by Admiral Hutchinson at NAS Whidbey? I represent a tech startup called Atreon which has developed an exciting new technology, and…”

“Let me stop you right there.” Logan blows a smoke ring to divert himself from growing irritation. “I’ve got all the money I could possibly need. I’m not looking to invest in anything, ever.”

“No sir, you misunderstand me. We’re fully funded, we’ve secured patents, and we’re in the final media freeze before product roll-out. What I’d like to offer you is something more in the way of a PR opportunity—and it’s a job I’m told you’ll enjoy.”

“I’m retired,” Logan says, going for bored-with-a-hint-of-acid, and crushes the butt of his smoke against one shoe. “Ipso facto, you can reasonably conclude I no longer enjoy working at all.”

“But you participated willingly in the Coronado Experiment, at one time,” the insistent little bastard continues. “And ‘lived for the thrills’, or so Admiral Hutchinson maintains.”

Admiral Hutchinson can suck my dick, Logan thinks, but says only, “’Lived for’ overstates the case. ‘Had my life turned into a chaotic mess by’ is probably better phrasing.”

“Sir, I’m offering you the chance to try again.” Shelby talks fast, like he intuits just how close to hanging up Logan is. “The Coronado Experiment was riddled with flaws, but we’ve re-engineered the Slipstreaming process to make it foolproof. Our company’s about to go public selling commercial time travel to the high-end customer, Captain Echolls. And we’d like to offer you the first chance to visit the era of your choosing for free…since our product only exists because of you.”

XXXXX

It takes Logan half an hour of pacing in the garden, yanking with both hands at what’s left of his hair, before his drama-queen self is calm enough to discuss this with Veronica. He knows she’ll make him argue; and while normally he’d enjoy that, he’s got to go to the dumbass rheumatologist about his dumbass gout this afternoon. He’s in no mood to be jollied out of his snit.

Eventually, he squares up and hikes across the lawn to the massive Spanish colonial, steps just slightly mincing to protect his swollen toes. He’s mentally rehearsing gambits that will piss his wife off, but not so much she gets irrational--when he pushes open the French doors, though, she’s no longer in the den. Instead Peanut’s reclined on the couch, in much the same position he occupied in the hammock, paging through a holo-paper with languid air-swipes. And her oldest kid Brooklyn’s cross-legged at the coffee table, typing up a paper for English.

“Hey Pop-Pop.” The girl rakes a hand through her rainbow-striped hair and tosses a bottle of what looks like cologne his direction. He catches it reflexively and reads the logo on the front—‘KLEEN’. “You need to spray that all over you before Grandma comes back. I can smell the cigarettes from here, and you know how she gets.”

He casts an arch look at Peanut, who grins but keeps her eyes on her paper. “I know nothing,” she says, in the pleasant throaty voice that still reminds him of his mom. “I see nothing. I am the perfect picture, lying here, of innocent and guiltless Zen.”

“Well that’s a first,” Logan says, which prompts her to wrinkle her nose. He laughs, and sniffs the KLEEN. “It doesn’t smell like anything at all. There’s no way this stuff will mask shit.”

“It doesn’t MASK.” Brooklyn sighs the long-suffering sigh of the young explaining to the old. “It DE-SCENTS. God, watch a commercial, sometimes I feel like I’m describing television to a caveman with you.”

“The entertainment industry holds allure only for those who haven’t been exploited by it,” Logan quips, but shuts his eyes and sprays. The smell of tar and nicotine fades, and relieved, he hands it back. “Remind me to add a mil to your trust fund, kid. You’re worth your weight in gold.”

“Right?” Brooklyn hides the bottle in her backpack, making Logan wonder what else she uses the stuff for, and returns to her typing. “You wouldn’t happen to know the name of Percy Shelley’s boat off the top of your head, would you? The one he fell out of and drowned? I’m making the case he was murdered by spies, and I forgot to write it down.”

“The Don Juan,” Logan says, prompting Peanut to actually look at him, brows raised in surprise. He winks at her, reaching down to muss her still-mostly-bronze-colored curls. “Now where, exactly, has your mother disappeared to?  I have a proposition I hate and she’ll love to lay before her, and there’s no sense putting off the pain.”

“She took Keith up to her office to find some book about forensic reconstruction.” Peanut grimaces. “He’s got a criminology quiz on Wednesday, and you know how invested she is in his academic success.”

Mirroring Peanut’s expression, since the appropriate answer is ‘too invested’, Logan pats Brooklyn and climbs the stairs, wincing as the toe of his sneaker contacts a riser. He can hear the two of them arguing methodology from all the way down the hall.

“It’s just not cost-EFFECTIVE!” Keith is saying as Logan pushes the door open, hand slashing the air to punctuate. The kid’s fair and determined, like Veronica and Peanut’s ex both, but he’s got Logan’s rangy athleticism and poor self-control. He’s technically a senior in high school, but he’s been acing college classes for two years now, so everyone knows it’s a charade. “Those artists spend MONTHS making and painting clay models, with all the capacity for human error that entails…whereas a 3D holo can be done in days. And those are months during which the perpetrator could be incarcerated, instead of running loose, wreaking havoc.”

Logan see-saws his head, because kid’s got a point, and Veronica shoots him a still-impossibly-blue look of mingled amusement and frustration. “There’s something to be said for starting with the actual skull.” She leans her elbows on the desk she’s too short to sit atop, and Logan approaches to kiss her pixie-cut grey head. “It’s immediate and tactile, and can spark a whole chain of associations that lead to intuitive leaps.”

“But you can just 3-D print a solid model…” Keith begins, then trails off as Logan elbows his gut. “Hey Pops. I thought you were chilling in the garden, and no one was allowed to interrupt?”

“I was,” Logan says, drily, “before I was telephoned with an offer I ought to refuse. You ever hear of a company called Atreon, sugar britches?”

Veronica’s fingers clench on polished oak, the only tell marring her calm demeanor. “Keith, why don’t you head downstairs, see what’s left in the fridge for dinner? We had lasagna and snickerdoodles last night; but if anybody’s gotten into them in the interim, we might need to order Thai.”

“Anybody,” Logan scoffs as the kid disappears, no doubt to eat his fill before reporting sadly back. “Like we don’t all know exactly who gets into the lasagna when nobody’s looking.”

“Hey, if you’d prefer I not enjoy your masterpieces, quit using imported cheese.” She paces over to the window and stands looking out, arms crossed--a pose almost designed to raise his hackles. “So Atreon approached you today, huh? Let me guess. Commercial time travel?”

Logan shakes his head, because of course she knows. Veronica keeps track of every current event that might conceivably bite her in the ass. “Seeing as I’m the putative Chuck Yeager of the technology,” he flashes the faux-modest grin, when she turns, he knows will push her buttons, “they want to splash me all over their ad campaign. Or more accurately, my younger self, since never underestimate the value of a handsome face.”

“Oh, I’m sure an endorsement deal is in the cards,” she says wryly, marching back across the carpet to stand before him. “But that’s not the only offer they made. Is it?”

“You know,” he murmurs, smiling down at her, “I love you a lot, peaches, but sometimes your prognosticative accuracy is creepy.”

“Quit acting so fragile.” She gives his chest a light shove. “Save your angst for the time traveling itself, because you must realize we have to accept.”

“I refuse to admit any such damn thing.” He crosses his arms, refusing to be budged. “I’ve done my time risking my ass for Uncle Sam, and you’ve had all the Slipstream adventuring any woman needs. Let some other version of us take these assholes up on the offer--do whatever it is you think should be done. We’ve earned our retirement, and we ought to fucking enjoy it.”

“Logan.” She smiles ruefully. “I’ve been certain the Victor timeline would be our responsibility for a while, now. And I’m also sure we don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” he corrects, gently. “Even when it’s bad. Isn’t that, like, our mantra?”

“Not this time.” She reaches up to run a lock of his longish, snow-white-for-two-years-now, pain-in-the-ass hair through her fingers. “You know why?”

He shrugs, surly. Thinks about the stupid rheumatologist, and how he’s rapidly slipping down the list of things about which Logan gets to throw a tantrum.

“Because when I was trapped in the Slipstream, and desperately needed saving? It took someone who knew the same things I did to get the job done. And the guy who rode to the rescue smoked…and looked exactly like you today.”

XXXXX

“Absolutely not,” is Dominic’s overdramatic assessment, once he turns up in his fancy hover-car, summoned by his mother’s Bat Signal. He flings up his hands, then crosses his arms in an excess of energy, an angry Gregory Peck posing by a bright blue wall. “Come on, dad, this is nuts, you’re seventy! Time travel’s out of the question!”

“I hesitate to remind you of this,” Logan drawls, sprawling across the dining-room chair opposite and crossing his feet on a stool, “since you’re on a roll, but I’m not one of your hapless employees. You don’t actually get to tell me what to do.”

“Well someone should!” Dominic widens dark eyes, going impressively square-jawed in the way that generally gets him what he wants. The poor kid inherited an excess of Echolls genes, plus Veronica’s wide mouth, cleft chin, and intractable assertiveness. It’s served him well in the boardroom--he’s been a millionaire on his own merit since thirty-three. But the sense of superiority he feels because he always wins, combined with his tendency to come on strong, makes him seem, every once in a while, just a little bit like a smug prick.

Of course Logan’s been accused of the same trait countless times, often by his own wife. So at least the kid comes by it honestly.

“Yeah, that job falls to your mother,” Logan replies mildly; he learned by the time he was five not to escalate histrionic conversations. “And she’s already informed me I’m doing this, so aim your objections her way.”

“There are objections?” Veronica strides into the room with Brooklyn in tow, both carting boxes of Thai. She leans over to kiss Dominic’s expensively-coiffed head as she passes. “How’d you get here so fast, baby? Don’t tell me you were in the neighborhood?”

“He bought a HOVER car,” Peanut reminds her, ambling in with Keith and a jug of Sangria. Setting it on the table, she leans back on both palms. “Only the best for Vice President in charge of sales, right, Tiger?”

“Jesus, Leilani, MUST you?” Dom cocks an antagonistic-sibling eyebrow, but stands to accept a beer. “Haven’t we outgrown idiotic nicknames by now?”

“Maybe YOU have.” She sidles up beside him, tall enough to drape a companionable arm around his shoulders, which she and Logan both know chaps his ass. “But you continue to act glad-handy and prone to roaring, so I think it still fits GRRREAT, Tony.”

“Enough.” Veronica abandons the carton to Keith’s predations and approaches to rest her hand on Logan’s nape. “Dominic quit going by his first name for this very reason, so please. Defy expectations, and stop teasing before you give him a complex.”

Peanut salutes, Veronica mock-scowls, and Keith says, “Ooh, lemongrass beef,” while prying open a box.

“Well, I think it’s a fabulous idea,” Brooklyn proclaims, reaching for the Sangria pitcher and then withdrawing her hand before Veronica can smack it. “I got a ton of popularity mileage out of Pop-Pop being a celebrity in high school. His return to the world stage can only enhance my college standing.”

“Nice to know you’re concerned about his safety,” Keith says drily, fishing a fork out of the drawer. “I did a twenty-page paper on the Coronado Experiment last semester, and I’d like to point out that seven people DIED.”

“Seven that made it into the public record,” Logan mutters, and Veronica whacks his ass with a serving spoon. “Myself, I emerged more-or-less intact, if not…unscathed.”

“But you were THIRTY!” Dominic interjects, springing to his feet. “You were younger back then than I am TODAY! And didn’t Leilani get so upset after one incident she…”

“Leilani is TOTALLY COOL with whatever they decide.” Peanut straightens from setting the table to favor him with a quelling look. “Like Dad said, he’s capable of making his own decisions.”

“In point of fact,” Logan accepts the iced beverage his wife hands him, sips, grimaces—it’s purple, and too damn sweet. “Your mother made this particular decision. But other than a very minor gout issue, I’m in good shape for my age.”

“And a minor needing-glasses-but-not-admitting-it issue.” Dominic folds his arms. “And a bunch of scars from catastrophic injury. And a missing spleen.”

“Like anybody needs their spleen anyway.” Logan handwaves the issue, dismissive. “It’s vestigial, or so my grandson informs me.”

“That’s the appendix,” Keith says, through a mouthful of food. “Which, if I recall correctly, you’re also currently without.”

“Be that as it MAY,” Veronica interjects, smoothly taking charge before Dom can get in a pissing match with his nephew. “This particular modality was designed to cater to wealthy tourists. I sincerely doubt it requires combat fitness, or optimal health, and certainly not pilot’s skills. I also don’t think it’s dangerous in any way, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“See?” Logan pops a dumpling in his mouth, smirks at her as he chews. “Veronica’s already made up my mind. If you kids want to put your eggs in a me-not-time-traveling basket, you’d better hope the guys from Atreon are major-league scumbags.”

“Not sure that requires a leap of faith,” Peanut opines, folding the last napkin and starting to dish out rice. “They’re accepting massive payouts to fulfill peoples’ lost dreams. But I guess we’ll find out for sure once mom and dad take the meeting.”

This quelling statement calms debate long enough for dinner to be eaten, and some holovid about robots on the moon enjoyed. (Although Dom does demand a last will and testament prior to the Atreon visit, and makes a speech about Responsibilities Family Members Have.) But once his hover car drifts off through the night, and Brooklyn and Keith settle in for Bogart noir with their grandmother, Peanut seeks him out.

He’s migrated to the porch with a glass of decidedly-not-sweet Scotch, which he’s sipping from his favorite rocker, gazing out at Arizona Bay. She takes a seat beside him, tucking her feet under her like she always has, and ties up her unruly hair.

“Is this something you really want?” she asks, after a long peaceful moment of silence. “This all-frills, no-substance, time-travel medicine show? Or is it something mom wants…and you’re doing that thing you do of assuming all the risks?”

Logan smiles, because he must have succeeded despite himself, to have kids who still care. “Well, according to the moron who phoned me today, the risks entailed here are zero. But I might create problems if I DON’T do it, in another reality that matters. And unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to explain.”

This elicits an exasperated eye roll, her head falling theatrically back. “Dad, I’m forty-nine,” she says, like maybe he forgot. “And all that military stuff you did in my childhood’s declassified. When do I get to leave the children’s table, and join the group of grownups with a need to know?”

“Leilani,” he parrots, turning to face her, smiling to soothe the hurt in her big, dark, soulful eyes. “You know how your mother always has an ulterior motive, which she’s very rarely willing to share?”

At her nod, he continues, “Well, in this case, she did share, once upon a million years ago. And it’s this secret that led to our marriage, and also led to Dom and you. Only this secret had a scorpion’s tail, and that phone call today was the stinger. Someone has to make one more trip back to finish things, and that someone has to be me. There’s another version of you out there who won’t be born if I don’t.”

She digests this in silence for a moment, then nods. Because never let it be said his daughter’s anything but brave. “I don’t like this,” she says finally. “Those fuckers aren’t confident in their product, if they need an old hero to shill for them. But I’ll give you forty-eight hours to do what’s necessary, before I put Grandpa’s detective lessons to good use.”

He laughs. Pats her hand where it rests on the chair arm beside her, then just leaves his own atop it. “And I’ll leave a sealed explanation in the lockbox, along with the will Dom demanded. So if the far-fetched worst happens, you won’t be left wondering why.”

She tilts sideways, leaning her head on his shoulder; he kisses it before turning back to the bay. Watches the waves roll over the sandy beach far below, and hopes his luck holds, just once.

XXXXX

Leilani Jane Echolls may have a sarcasm problem to rival her old man’s, but she’s an excellent judge of character. David Shelby from Atreon turns out to be a shaved weasel with a simmering Napoleon complex, and his motives are suspicious as fuck.

Logan dislikes the guy before he even speaks…before he clasps Logan’s hand, perfunctory and clammy, and gestures magnanimously towards the guest chair. It’s partly the way he’s got his desk up on a riser, so he towers over visitors behind a ton of mahogany. And it’s a little bit excess cologne and an office copied from Trump Tower, wanna-be-09’er tells that have annoyed since puberty.

But mostly it’s the look in the guy’s eye—false conviviality not quite covering shiftiness. Logan’s read Veronica’s voluminous research into the Atreon tech, and the math seems sound. But he’s known more than his share of shysters… and this little shit in pressed Armani sets off internal alarms.

Faking casualness, and also lack of arthritis, Logan sprawls into the indicated chair and crosses his legs at the ankle. Folds both hands on his stomach and raises anticipatory brows. “So I guess this is where you wow me?” he says, while Shelby takes his time tapping papers. “Since you need my weathered-but-still-handsome visage to sell your product?”

Beside him, Veronica coughs into her hand, and he fights back a smirk. They’ve played poker enough times she knows his strategy; step one, get the opponent’s back up. Step two, corner the twit with verve and math, then take his cash with a smile.

And she not-so-secretly loves it when he fucks with people…so if he handles this interrogation just right, he might get laid.

“Captain Echolls.” Shelby tries out the most unctuous smile Logan’s seen since Woody Goodman. “If precisely calibrated time travel at will doesn’t wow you, I’d be fascinated to hear what DOES.”

“Well, that’s the thing, David.” Logan watches the guy try not to fidget, his own body gone dangerously still. “If I were some venture capitalist looking to make my first trillion, and all I knew about time travel was the tripe in your brochure, I probably WOULD be wowed. And I’m sure you’ve got some splashy demonstration fool-proofed to allay cash-bundlers’ concerns. But since I was the guinea pig who combat-tested this tech in the first place…I know just how prone to disaster it is. I’ve seen what happens when you target the wrong coordinate, the mess that results when someone’s pulled back improperly. So first let’s hear how you’ve fixed problems that killed better men than myself—and please, no song-and-dance about multiverse mapping, we both know that’s not possible. Then maybe, if you’re convincing enough, I’ll consider the offer’s merits.”

Veronica leans forward slightly as she waits for the answer, zeroing in on her prey. Shelby’s too busy sizing Logan up to notice, though. He’s a dumbass who’s failed to recognize the most dangerous person in the room.

“Off the record,” he says, because of course he does, “you’re correct, Captain. There’s no way to detail-map a probability field that’s constantly in flux. However, we CAN plot exact coordinates in the originating reality with ease. And our quantum branching extrapolations will track and retrieve all trajectories originating from it.”

“You THINK,” Logan corrects, and Veronica sits up straighter like he’s pinpointed the issue that bothered her. “Or maybe you’re just spouting a company line. But I seriously doubt you KNOW.”

“Captain.” Shelby comes across with a practiced sympathy that makes Logan’s fist clench. “Forty years ago, unfortunate events transpired because your team battled staggering mathematical odds, using only archaic computers and human minds. The fact that you’re even sitting here is testament to their brilliance. But technology is QUANTUM, now—things so wrenchingly difficult then have become commonplace. I don’t NEED to know exactly how the system tracks down one person in a multiverse…as long as I have confidence it can. We beta tested for six years before going public, sending missions out almost weekly. Our success rate is virtually unblemished.”

 Virtually, Logan thinks. Wonders how many tourists would have to die or come back ruined to shut this enterprise down. Or how they’ll stop clients from committing crimes they never would at home—disappearing enemies, maybe vanishing themselves.

It’s doubtful a non-staggering casualty list would serve, given the profit potential…and even a legal ban would only push the tech into the shadows. Of course, Logan’s view of human nature is dim. And growing dimmer the longer he talks to Shelby.

He lifts a hand and both brows, preparing a caustic retort, but Veronica cuts across him like she planned to intervene. “What kind of demonstration did you have in mind?” Her voice is sweet, demure, he has to flatten his lips to hide amusement. “To convince my husband your service is safe, and has bang for the buck that merits the fee?”

Shelby smiles, oily again, believing, poor sucker, he’s found an ally. “Choose a date, time and specific location—anything your heart desires, within your lifespan or outside it. We’ll set the coordinates, and I’ll travel with the Captain, just to demonstrate how confident I am it’s safe.”

“With US,” she corrects, offering her most blinding-yet-grimly-determined smile, and Logan’s smirk freezes as he realizes she’s played him, too. “If Logan decides to test this invention today, I’m coming along for the ride.”

XXXXX

It all proceeds, from there, with a grim inevitability he should have predicted. They’re given a quick health scan, to rule out serious conditions that might kick in under pressure. The coordinates Veronica suggests (July 19th, 2006, Roscoe’s Diner, Neptune, 12:45 am) are run through some algorithm to make sure they’re tourist-safe. Then they sign waivers Logan’s careful to read, as much as his not-so-perfect eyesight will allow. And photograph, and cloud store, the second Shelby looks away.

After paperwork, they’re given costumes appropriate to the era—Logan’s offered sans-a-belt slacks and a beige-plaid nerd shirt, which he rejects with disdain, demanding Oxford and khakis. Veronica rolls her eyes, accepting a sweater set without complaint, but requests trousers and flats, ‘just in case’.

Once dressed, they’re left alone in an antechamber that looks like an old-money men’s club. Veronica picks up a holo-mag and begins absently scanning perfume ads, pretending unconcern. Logan crosses his arms, tapping a stray pen on his bicep, and lets her have it with the full weight of his betrayed stare.

Finally, she caves--gives an exasperated sigh and flicks off the mag’s 3D display. “Come on--you know that used-car salesman with stock options wouldn’t wade in dangerous waters,” she says, in the voice she still thinks sounds reasonable. “The tech’s safe as houses. And since when did you mind a little danger, anyhow?”

“I DON’T mind danger,” he retorts, continuing to tap and stare. “I DO mind the fact that we agreed we didn’t trust the little shit…and then you blindsided me. And made me SIGN things. And now we’re potentially risking our still-not-nearly-over lives for what? To watch our eighteen-year-old selves drink coffee after a White Stripes concert? Are you HIGH?”

“I have a plan,” she says, which instills in him zero confidence; he’s been involved in enough of her plans to know how little thought goes into them. “There’s something I want you to find out first, though. We can get away with one trip to the critical reality in question, if we just make sure…”

The door swings open then, and Shelby enters, along with a six-foot sandy-haired bruiser whose battered face screams ‘merc’. Soldier of Fortune’s in a t-shirt and jeans, of the bell-bottom variety popular in Logan’s youth (which, despite his current state of pissed-offedness, makes him snicker). Shelby’s in generic Levi’s and a polo shirt with the collar popped, God help him. Either he didn’t pay attention during his early twenty-first century fashion lessons, or he’s the kind of moron instruction can’t dent.

“Captain and Mrs. Echolls, this is Alonso Stanton,” Shelby says, with what he probably thinks is bonhomie. “He’ll be providing security during our visit, just in an overabundance of caution. If you have any questions about procedures for behavior and extraction, he’s your go-to man. And if some unpleasantness arises, he’s well-equipped to handle it.”

“I have a question,” Veronica says, coupling the statement with a smile so ingratiating Logan goes on red alert. “Not about safety—Mr. Stanton looks quite capable—but about methodology. You said earlier that multiverse mapping wasn’t possible, even for a quantum system. So how exactly DO you target the moment in the past to which you direct…visitors?”

Shelby smiles, because this type of sales pitch is right in his wheelhouse. “We use the traveler’s memories, of course. Captain Echolls will undergo a brief and non-invasive scan, while focusing on his memory of this particular event. Our system will then search its exhaustive database for a point in the multiverse that matches--and that’s the exact moment we’ll visit.”

Triumph flashes across her face—a cat-in-cream microexpression so brief Logan’s sure no one else caught it—and then she schools her features into polite concern. “Oh, but…” She trails off in a totally fake show of reluctance.

“Is there a problem?” Shelby takes her arm with oily solicitousness. “Surely Captain Echolls was present on the day in question?”

“Well, yes.” She shoots Logan a distinct look of warning. “It’s just…his memory’s not what it used to be.”

Logan’s face relaxes into a smirk—he knows where this is going now, and he’s willing to play along. “Unlike my wife,” he says, which makes her shoulders visibly relax. “She’s got a mind like a steel trap. Remembers EVERYTHING.”

“If you’d prefer,” Shelby says, “we can map Mrs. Echolls’ memories instead. Just keep in mind, Captain, her recollection of events might lead to a…slightly different destination than yours?”

“Oh, I’d be willing to bet money,” he murmurs, dry, and Veronica’s scowl threatens to break through her mask. “But she always manages to rescue me from the messes she gets me into, so I’m okay to take my chances.”

“One more thing, Mr. Shelby…” Veronica puts her little hand on his arm, the coup de grace he won’t see coming. “How do you make sure time travelers get home safe?”

On his wrist, Shelby’s watch phone begins to beep. He holds up a wait-one-minute finger, with an insincere apologetic grimace, taps his wireless earbud to activate. “This is David.”

“Machine records the multiverse coordinates where you land.” Stanton speaks for the first time in a soft, gravelly drawl. “When your signature returns to within a hundred feet of the entry point, it automatically sends a pod for your retrieval.”

“But what if you’re hurt?” She twists her hands together in a way that makes Logan quirk a brow. “What if you can’t manage to buckle your seatbelt?”

“The pod appears around you.” Stanton watches Shelby retreat to the corner and whisper agitatedly, eyes narrowed. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Echolls. All you have to do is stand there.”

Shelby returns, teeth bared in his public-relations smile. “Captain Echolls, Mrs. Echolls, I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid there’s a problem with our vendors that won’t wait. I’m needed on a holo call immediately. If you’d like to continue your adventure today as scheduled, I can assure you Mr. Stanton is fully qualified to guide you. If not, I’d be happy to accompany you another day.”

Logan looks at Veronica, since this is her show, even though Shelby taking a powder alarms. But she just says, “Well, as long as Mr. Stanton is qualified…”

“Excellent, excellent.” Shelby forces Logan to endure his clammy handshake once more. “I hope your trip is as interesting and transformational as mine have been. I look forward to discussing business when you return.”

Veronica shakes, miraculously without grimacing, then finger-waves as Shelby leaves. Logan turns to Stanton, who does a retina scan to open a door in the wall and says, “Any chance I’ll make it home in time for dinner?”

XXXXX

The room where it happens is bigger than Logan expected.

Granted, he’s only ever made this journey from a cockpit or simacrulum, his body wedged in odd spaces where machinery wouldn’t fit. This space, by contrast, is the size of a small study, if studies were fat tubes of steel with troop-transport seats bolted to the walls. Everything’s pristine, ship-shape, albeit less luxurious than clients will want. But the materials are good, no corners cut, and the five-point harnesses and attached helmets cheer him.

“Why is there a drain in the floor?” Veronica asks, tugging at the jumpsuit they made her don over her clothes. Logan snorts, ensuring his own zipper’s secure, which draws an amused glance from Stanton as the guy preps a chair.

“Remember that time we went to Magic Mountain,” he asks, innocently, “and Duncan ate too much cotton candy before electing to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl? Multiply that sensation by a thousand, and make sure you’re not wearing jewelry.”

“We have to get up to speed,” Stanton explains, gesturing for Veronica to sit and easing the helmet down. “The stabilizers will kick in before g-force gets unbearable, but up till then it can be a bumpy ride.” He buckles her harness, indicates she should slip her arm through a wrist guard. Tightens that. “Don’t worry, you passed your physical, there isn’t anything wrong with your inner ears. But you’re a doctor, right, Mrs. Echolls? So you understand the importance of clenching your muscles and remaining still.”

“I’ve been hanging around the CAPTAIN for almost sixty years,” she says, tartly, gazing down at her immobilized arms with almost-concealed misgiving. “I’m ALWAYS prepared for disaster.”

Logan grins, disposes himself theatrically in the seat opposite, and stretches his foot to nudge hers. “I’d like to remind you, at this juncture, that I’m the one who DIDN’T want to take Shelby up on his oh-so-tantalizing offer. Any disaster that ensues, buttercup, is therefore on you.”

“Logan, you’d wreak havoc in the Garden of Eden,” she says, and he can’t help himself--her dry tone makes him laugh. “Every apple would be gone by nightfall, the snake wouldn’t have to say shit.”

Stanton rubs a knuckle over his mouth to cover a smile, and Logan’s opinion of the guy goes up a notch. “Marine Corps?” he asks as their guide buckles him in like he’s five, stoic and meticulous.

“Sixteen years.” Stanton smacks the rack on which the helmet slides, unsticking it, and adjusts it to hug Logan’s skull. “No fancy tin-can quarters like you Navy pukes, but I learned a lot about making do. Which comes in handy on this job, turns out.”

“I’d venture a crack right now about McGuyver, but I doubt you’d get the reference.” He shifts minutely to get comfortable. “So I’ll just smile sweetly and agree, and neglect to mention I LITERALLY wrote the book on this subject.”

“Briefing document said you were cocky, once upon a time.” Stanton finishes lacing him in and dusts his hands together, all finished. “Said Mrs. Echolls used to be a Fed, too, and she’s the one I’d have to watch.”

“Well that’s unusually perceptive.” Logan smirks as Stanton takes a seat and begins methodically buckling. “Mrs. Echolls, would you like to address this accusation or should I?”

“I’m just a retired grandmother.” Veronica punctuates with her most sugary smile. “Bless your heart. I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Stanton shakes his head before pulling his own helmet down and snapping it in place. “You two are something,” he says, voice muffled. Puts his wrists and ankles in place, then taps a series of buttons to lock them down. “Stay as still as possible, pressed against the seatback,” he advises as the machine begins to click and hum. “Initiating sequence to achieve velocity now.”

Veronica meets Logan’s eyes, face dispassionate in the way it only gets when she’s scared. So he winks and mouths ‘I love you’, which relaxes her enough to ALMOST smile.

This is the first time, he reminds himself as the room jerks left, that she’s done this in a machine, with her own body, for real. Her very first experience feeling wrenched through her skin and backwards, into an abyss as primal as fear.

But he remembers the sensation all too well. His heart accelerates as the room does, kicking into a spin that would have turned Duncan into Linda Blair. Terror and elation, his continued existence on the line, combine in those pleasurable shivers he’s never been able to stop craving. He knows Peanut will read the holo-file, if anything vital goes wrong. Hopes she and Tony can intuit what he didn’t say--‘You’re everything, in case this is goodbye’.

Then the universe rips apart and he’s thrown end-over-end, into a different world where neither kid yet exists.

XXXXX

With a last lurch, his stomach settles, and he stumbles back against something hard. Pries his wind-whipped eyes open as Veronica says, “Ow,” and finds himself staring at a crumbling brick wall.

“Auto Body Shop,” Stanton says, to his left. Logan turns past a lot filled with night-shadowed rust-buckets to watch him pull Veronica upright. She’s torn the knee of the standard-issue jumpsuit and looks pretty dizzy, but her grimace tells him she’s all right. “Or at least that’s the drop point we chose, since it’s closed at this hour.”

“No witnesses.” Veronica brushes an experimental hand over the injury and doesn’t wince. “Smart.”

Stanton unzips his suit, gestures for them to do the same. “We need to exit this location within ten minutes, or we’ll automatically be recalled,” he says. “I’ll stash your suits in that stack of tires on the way out; we’ll grab ‘em once we’re done visiting memory lane.”

“This is the neighborhood where we ate after the White Stripes concert?” Logan frowns at the lack of street traffic, the boarded-over shopfronts visible through the fence. “Wow, the memory does play tricks. I recall this area being busier. And having…streetlights.”

Veronica smiles, at her most enigmatic, relinquishing her jumpsuit. She smooths the front of her pink sweater set, and gestures at the padlocked chain trapping them. “Got something to sever that? I’m afraid I’m past the age where I can climb.”

“No problem.” Stanton trades Logan a pocket laser, gesturing with his chin. “You want to cut that real quick, while I drop these…”

Then he grunts and falls forwards, so sudden and heavy Logan almost can’t catch him. And behind, Veronica checks the gauge on the hypo-spray she’s holding, then tucks it back into her vinyl Grandma purse.

“Drag him over to the spot where we dropped, will you?” She holds her hand out for the laser. “Then make tracks while I cut this, or he won’t be the only one auto-recalled.”

Logan gazes down at the limp merc in his arms with a sense of foreboding, but does as instructed, patting down Stanton and relieving him of all possessions before stashing him behind an air pump. “Veronica,” he says conversationally as he ambles back, “you wouldn’t mind explaining why you just shanked our bodyguard, would you? Because I knew you were up to something, back at Atreon; but I didn’t expect you to go to extremes.”

“This neighborhood’s in ruins because incorporation happened here, Logan.” She makes a small, satisfied whuff as the link she’s slicing falls apart. “Which means we’re right where I want to be…in the reality I used to call Ideal. Hopefully you still remember how to boost a car, because we’re far too prosperous and white to hang around. And I know how you feel about taking the bus.”

He sighs, looking down at her; at the glint in her eye, the sense of furious purpose he adores. “Just exactly how long do you plan on staying?” he asks, and follows her out the gate. “I’m guessing more than the scheduled three hours?”

“As long as it takes.” She points at a shabby seventies Caddie down the road. Extracts a collapsible Slim Jim from her purse, and straightens it as she marches that direction. “To show up when needed and save the day. I wouldn’t have tried to do the whole job in one trip, but this might be our only chance.”

Behind them, there’s a flash and crack, like lightning and thunder as air’s displaced. He knows without looking Stanton’s gone, which means the arrival of a retrieval team is imminent.

Veronica gets the door open in five seconds, though, and he’s made the engine sit up and purr in thirty. They’re halfway out of the barrio and merging onto the PCH before anyone even knows they’re gone.


	3. She Caught a Little Fish, She Had One Wish

REBOOT--LEILANI JANE--2058

When the clock strikes midnight and her parents still haven’t called, Leilani does her best not to worry. Shit happens, especially to people named Echolls; for all she knows, they’re dissecting Dad’s adventure over pie and cocktails, or conning their way out of yet another speeding ticket. So she powers through the end of Harper Beckham’s latest spy thriller, Keith’s deerhound Murphy draped across her lap, then methodically checks lights and locks before bed.

The strip of space beneath her son’s door shows dark, so she cracks it open to admit the dog…makes sure his blackout shade’s pulled so he doesn’t wake with the sun and burn her pans attempting breakfast. Keith’s sprawled to all four corners of the mattress, relaxed in sleep the way he never is awake. His blonde hair sticks out every direction, overabundant as hers, and he’s very lightly snoring.

She shuts him in, pats the jamb, and goes about her nightly routine--shower, makeup removal, dental care, moisturizing. Winds her hair quickly into a braid and tries not to wonder where Mom and Dad might be. But it’s hard to contain her fear…harder, maybe, than when she was ten, because she better understands the risks. The urge to do something reckless to relieve the pressure keeps her staring at the ceiling, determinedly not thinking, for hours.

When she sleeps, she dreams an airplane’s crashing, burning wreckage, Dad trapped inside. She stands behind glass in a control tower, watching, and pounds, futile, at the bulletproof window.

The holo-phone on her wrist blares at 7:30 on the dot, and she jerks awake with a sinking feeling that won’t fade. Checking the log—no calls—she shoves back escaped hair and climbs out of bed with a groan. Her back’s been aching in the mornings, lately, which hopefully ISN’T the first sign of arthritis.

“Mom!” Keith calls from the ground floor, accompanied by his dog’s soft whine. “Where’d you put the eggs? I’ll be late if I don’t eat soon!”

“Coming!” she shouts, voice hoarse, and clears her throat to try again. “Make some toast. You can do that without setting anything on fire, right?”

“FUNNY,” he says, but does what she asks. By the time she’s donned her robe and made it to her sage-green-and-butcher-block kitchen, the room smells like strawberries and warm bread.

Shifting him out of the way with her shoulder, she adjusts the toaster down, then sets a cup on the espresso maker and hits brew. It hisses, dispensing her first dose of wakefulness, and she sips as she locates a pan in the cabinet and fetches butter. “How many eggs?” she asks, watching a pat sizzle and melt, then turns as he hands her the carton.

“Four?” He grabs a pack of pre-cooked sausages and passes those too, juggling his own milky coffee and a half-eaten pop tart. He’s still in pajamas despite his exhortations--green plaid pants and a t-shirt, which sports some ‘retro-hilarious’ holo-game honey badger.

She wonders, as she inspects and cracks eggs, how Stone Age he’d consider her old Xbox. Which leads to a memory of Mario Kart with Dad…throwing popcorn to distract him, laughing when he caught it in his mouth. This prompts another check of the frustratingly silent wrist phone.

“We need more milk,” Keith tells her, tossing the last corner of pop tart to the dog, scooching past her to butter toast. “And lunch meat. Are you buying groceries today?”

“Add them to the kitchen comm.” She points with her spatula at the console on the far wall. “I’ll review and order after I caffeinate.”

He crosses to type on the keyboard with one finger, dripping jam; she plates the eggs and begins frying sausage. “So how’d Pop like his trip down memory lane?” He cups a hand beneath his overloaded toast. “Lost youth successfully reclaimed? Or was the tech too sketchy for him to make the attempt?”

“I don’t know.” She attempts a mild tone. “They didn’t call last night, and I keep getting shunted to voicemail. Probably they got home late and decided to sleep in.”

Keith frowns, though concern doesn’t slow his eating. “Bet you a hundred bucks Grandma went along for the ride and made him do something exhausting.”

“Do I look like a sucker?” Leilani hands him his breakfast. “There are sliced tomatoes in the fridge. You need money for lunch, or you want me to pack something?”

“Nah, it’s Monday.” He shoves the last of the toast in his mouth and heads for the dining room, calling over his shoulder, “I’ve only got English lit at high school today, then I’m headed for UA to work on my Forensics paper. I’ll pick something up in the food court and put it on my account.”

She nods, trying not to feel a pang that cooked meals are the only thing he still needs from her. “Be home by six for dinner or call.” She follows him to set Tabasco on the table and kiss the top of his head. “And don’t forget, your sister’s acoustic set at Strand is at nine. Try not to make any plans.”

“Like she cares at all whether her baby brother shows,” he scoffs. But he’s a responsible kid, so she knows he’ll comply.

Returning to the kitchen, her personal, elaborate comfort zone, she tidies away breakfast. Cuts and butters a raspberry scone, makes more coffee and lets the dog out. Sits, quietly chewing, while the Tasmanian Devil that’s her last child at home whirls from table to bedroom to door to car, and disappears with the faint growl of an engine. She holds a cup in both hands, steam rising to dampen her cheeks, and accepts that she can’t stop fretting.

With a sigh, she crosses to the comm, reviews the grocery list and hits send. Heads upstairs to dress while she waits for delivery.

Once the food’s put away, she unplugs her car from the charger, loads the trunk with flour and sugar, and makes the five-minute drive across the compound to her parents’ sprawling ‘cottage’. She can do the week’s baking there, where the box containing all the answers to this mystery sits BEGGING to have its lock picked. Her cover story even makes sense, if someone asks her to explain—Mom has a way bigger oven.

XXXXX

Leilani’s sure, as she pulls into the garage, that they’re still not home. Dad’s Porsche is missing, the one he drives in the city during two-person jaunts; and when she retinal-scans her way inside, the house is dark and still.

Setting bags on the kitchen counter, she tries their phones again—no answer—so she turns on lights and ambient music and heads into Dad’s soothing-grey, super-Zen library. Removes her lock pick set and several electronic devices from the box her grandfather left her in his will. Sets them on the desk, then crouches in front of the timed lockbox to study it.

It’s a featureless cube, which means internal seal, and she’s knows it’s up-to-the-minute technology because her father wouldn’t settle for less. She thinks for a minute, then programs the high-speed codebreaker to run variations of family birthdays and anniversaries before attaching it to the front.

It whirs for a few seconds, lights flashing on the small rectangular surface. Then the top of the box glows red, and the recorded voice of her father says, “Nice try, Peanut. It’s like you think I don’t know you. Wait forty-eight hours for me to keep my word, you promised. And try to remember, ten deep breaths.”

“UGH!” she yells, yanking the codebreaker off the box and throwing it onto the couch. It lies blinking like it’s mocking her. “You know I fucking hate waiting more than ANYTHING EVER, DAD!”

She storms across the house to the control pad, releasing energy with angry motion, and kicks the background music up rebelliously loud. Then she settles in to do what’s required--actively, that is, while baking, in the elaborate red-and-black chef’s kitchen that contains every possible tool. A tried-and-true Veronica Mars cure for all ills, and a ritual that keeps her too busy to melt down.

Snickerdoodles got the Echolls clan through that one awful deployment unscathed; also, just barely, the LAST set of time-traveling disasters. Besides, as long as her product resembles food, it’s not like Keith will let a crumb go to waste.

Around noon, after easing a pan of plum tartlets into the Lacanche range, she shoves back her hair with one flour-smeared hand and decides, _I have to DO SOMETHING_. Mutes the music, pulls up the holo-directory on her phone, locates a general number for Atreon…and steels herself to steamroll anyone who thwarts her. The receptionist, a kitten-voiced amateur who doesn’t stand a chance against Echolls ingenuity, attempts the ‘Can I take your number?’ runaround. But Leilani injects just enough histrionic drama to make it clear cops are an option…and within minutes, she’s speaking to someone senior.

“Ms. Echolls?” The smooth, practiced voice belongs on an infomercial, and when she enables holo, the over-coiffed suit-bro matches. “I’m David Shelby, Vice President in charge of sales. I met with your parents yesterday to discuss a business venture?”

“It’s Clark, actually.” She unobtrusively dusts away the flour at her hairline, forcing her voice into its most soothing, motherly monotone. “Leilani Clark, but yes, Captain Echolls and Dr. Mars are my parents. They haven’t come home since Dad’s…hush-hush adventure at your facility, and those of us back at the ranch are concerned.”

“Hmmm.” His face creases in lines of false solicitude that indicate his mind is elsewhere. “Yes, they WERE scheduled for a quick tech demo yesterday, but the system shows it ended at five. And I’m afraid I wasn’t present for the event. My job’s a logistical nightmare at the moment, as I’m sure you can imagine--I was called away to resolve a minor crisis. Maybe they were tired after their outing and decided to stay in a hotel? I know my folks lack the stamina they once enjoyed.”

“If that were the case,” Leilani starts losing the ability to hide her impatience, “they would have CALLED. My parents are dependable, Mr. Shelby, and they knew I was worried.”

“Hmmm,” he says again, attention fixing on something out of camera frame. “Let me talk to the staff who handled the demo, see if they can shed some light. Is this number the best way to reach you?”

She nods, rigid with repressing retorts, and he says, “Wonderful, excellent. Please try not to worry, Ms. Echolls. I’ll be in touch.”

_It’s CLARK_ , she thinks, hanging up with unnecessary drama. Checks the time, turns the music back on even louder, and begins baking again with a vengeance.

She’s halfway through a batch of cinnamon rolls, because they’re Brooklyn’s favorite and require kneading, when the lock at the front door beeps open and she hears rustling in the hall. Sagging with relief, she tosses the dough in an oiled bowl, mutes the music again, and wipes her hands. Calls, “Jesus, you two really know how to worry a gi…” just as her uncle shuffles around the corner.

 “Hey there, little Peanut.” Wallace rests his silver-tipped cane against the kitchen island, sinks gratefully onto a stool. He snitches a cooling snickerdoodle and eats with relish. “When I smell this kind of sugary goodness, I expect to find your mother in the kitchen.”

“Mom’s not here.” Leilani tamps down her disappointment to fill a glass of milk, in which he promptly dunks another cookie. “OR Dad. He was invited to participate in some commercial time-travel event yesterday and they never came home.”

Wallace sets the stack of cookies he’s pilfered on the counter and stares at her while she fetches a plate. Shakes his stylish snow-white head and keeps right on shaking it as he transfers the cookies and eats one more. “Did she say anything to you?” Leilani prompts, since he seems disposed to remain lost in thought. “Did the two of you have plans today?”

“You think Veronica Mars ever tells me what she’s up to?” He scoffs, drinks some milk, appropriates a napkin to wipe his close-cropped beard. Neglects to answer the second question, which sets off alarm bells. “Nah, Leilani, she tells me what to DO, just like she tells everyone, but she leaves out the details I won’t like.” He spins a cookie in a circle with one finger, distracted. “And needless to say, I don’t like THIS—although I can’t say I’m surprised, after she called for no reason last night, and Mac rang me up fretting this morning. Nobody ought to exist anywhere but right now, and time-travel wise? Logan’s been through ENOUGH.”

“True that.” Leilani turns back to the oven to remove tarts as the timer dings.

“You call her?” Wallace asks as she hands him one. Sniffs and takes a cautious bite.

“Her, him, Atreon. My folks don’t answer, and Atreon insists they were gone by five. I can’t declare them missing for forty-eight hours, and besides, I promised Dad I’d give him time. So for now I’m just trying to maintain, and leaving lots of messages. And baking.”

“If they’re not home by dinner, you get in touch with Mac.” Wallace nods approval as he polishes off the tart. “She knows something, she all but told me so, and besides, she’s got ways of finding things other people can’t. And if Veronica DOES show up before then, which most likely she will? Tell her I need to speak to her ASAP, and she’d better not ignore me. Mom’s eighty-ninth is next week, we got to make plans.”

“I promise.” Leilani crosses her heart, puts his cookies in a paper sack. Adds a few more. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

Wallace hugs her while accepting the bag, dusts flour off the lapel of his three-piece suit and retrieves his cane. He mutters to himself as he goes tap-clunking out the door, shaking his head again once he thinks she won’t see. But Atreon’s already answered her redial, so she can’t hear what, specifically, has him flustered.

She name-drops Shelby, and is considerably displeased by the resulting stonewall. “I’m sorry,” the blonde receptionist says, a statement which is clearly not true. “He’s in meetings for the rest of the day. Can I take a message?”

“Sure!” Leilani throws a spatula across the kitchen because FUCK this company. “How about you ask him, when he steps out to stretch his legs, if he can work Leilani Clark in BEFORE I call the cops about my missing parents? ‘Minor crises’ will be the least of his worries if the two of them turn up DEAD.”

She cuts the connection with a smack of her palm, then speed-dials her brother. To his credit, he actually picks up, although his Very Serious Business Face hints at reluctance. “I had to put a conference call on mute to answer,” he informs her, in that faux-patient tone she loathes. “Is this an emergency?”

“Mom and Dad still aren’t back.” Her temper maybe slips a little as she speaks, because she’s been up all night fretting whereas it seems like he FORGOT. “Nobody’s seen them since they left Atreon yesterday, and I’m officially stressed.”

Tony sighs, looks up towards the heavens, and stays that way for a second, thinking. “But they LEFT Atreon?” He refocuses, and she nods. “Then my guess is, you’re worried over nothing--you know how they are. Probably stumbled across a smuggling ring while charging their car at 7-11. Mom’s no doubt engineering the gang’s demise.”

“Ugh, fine, un-mute your meeting. It’s five anyway, I have to get home and make stupid dinner before Brooklyn’s musical debut.” She switches off the oven and starts packing warm pastries. “But if they haven’t shown up by tomorrow, be prepared to kick out the jams. I don’t care if you have to piss off the Nobel committee to find time.”

“I’ll work you in,” he says, snide to the end, and she hangs up on him too in favor of angrily scrubbing counters.

After booking home well over the speed limit, she parks beside Keith’s car, precision-aligned in his half of the driveway; calls his name as she retina-scans. He doesn’t answer, so she hefts all the bags in one precarious load--and of course her wristphone rings while she’s fully burdened.

Once in the kitchen, she tosses the day’s labor haphazardly on the island and answers, shoving hair out of her eyes. No corresponding face appears--she frowns, reading ‘unknown’ on the caller ID. “Yes?” she snaps, blocking a gougere before it rolls onto the floor.

“Uh, Ms. Echolls?” It’s a male voice she doesn’t recognize, husky-soft but deep, with a distinct Southern drawl.

“Ms. CLARK.” She sighs, gathering errant cheese puffs. Checks the freezer and locates a pre-made lasagna. “But my maiden name was Echolls, yes.”

“Beg pardon, ma’am,” he says, sounding like he actually means it. “I just…heard you’ve been calling around Atreon, trying to find your folks, and I thought you should know…they went off-map.”

“They what?” She abandons dinner prep to fully focus. “Wait, they BOTH went time-traveling? Not just Dad?” _Guess I owe Keith that hundred bucks._

“Yes ma’am, then gave their guide the slip in July 2006 and disappeared. That time period mean anything to you?” She shrugs before remembering to say ‘nope’, and he continues. “Anyhow, I thought you should know they weren’t victims of foul play. Since there’s no way Shelby’ll admit squat, right now, about issues impacting the golden-goose tech.”

“Well can’t someone find them and bring them home?” She winds a hand in her hair and yanks, since for once the caller’s not watching. “Surely there must be a contingency plan for…runaways?”

“Yes ma’am, standard practice is to send a four-person retrieval team—costumes have built-in trackers, but they need to be accessed from the same reality. I’m not on that squad, though, Ms. Clark, and I’ve got no information about progress. Nobody’s telling me anything except shut up and wait.”

He sounds peeved, and Leilani wonders who he is, why he cares. “Well, good luck tracking my mother if she doesn’t want to be found,” she says. “Odds are she crushed your bugs beneath her heel within the hour. What I don’t understand is why she wanted to revisit…when? High school? Much less why Dad LET her. This trip was supposed to be a formality—like Gilligan’s Island, a three-hour tour.”

“It was her memory they chose, I know that much,” Manly Redneck says. “Not his. And she’s the one who…tricked the guide. She was crafty and quick, too, like she had her scheme pre-planned. And I’ll tell you this—if they CAN’T be tracked, we’ll have to wait for them to return to the retrieval site. It’s not possible to yank them back from any spot on the map. Meanwhile the whole company’s flipping, seems like, on account of this stunt. We meant to go public next week.”

Leilani grits her teeth against the rising tide of panic. “What should I DO? Can you help me?”

“No, maa’m, I’m not even supposed to be talking to you right now—I signed an NDA. If the bigwigs knew I was leaking, I’d get sued. But it worries me your folks took a powder and someone’s trying to hush it up. Seems like Captain Echolls is famous enough that might not work. Also, you know, the two of them are getting along in years, even though they still have plenty of attitude. Besides which, time travel without an armed guard isn’t…the safest.”

“Can you at least let me…” she begins, but with a muttered ‘SHIT’ he hangs up. The stove timer dings, startling her, and she buries her face in both hands.

“Fucking MOM,” she hisses finally into her floury, sweaty palms, when the urge to hyperventilate passes. Then shoves the lasagna in to cook so hard the pan bounces off the oven’s back, before pressing the speed dial for Mac Mackenzie on her wrist phone.

It rings about twelve times before Mac answers with a, “Hold on a sec would you, Leilani? The ferret crawled inside the sofa springs again, and Max wants to lie down to watch his poker tournament.”

She growls low in her throat and tosses her hair back; Mac takes her sweet time completing the animal rescue. Finally, after seven minutes, Leilani’s godmother reactivates the phone, running a hand ruefully across her close-cropped grey hair. “Sorry about that. He’s supposed to stay in his cage when unsupervised, but Max and I got into an argument about card counting while we tested the latest Rube Goldberg Weasel Playscape. Wiggled under the miniature staircase like a snake, and made it inside the couch before we could catch him.”

“Not bolting down the steps was your first mistake,” Leilani says. “But, and I mention this with love, I don’t have time for Ferret Bueller’s escapades right now. Mom and Dad went time-traveling at Atreon yesterday, as I’m pretty sure you’re aware, and they still haven’t come home. Also, Wallace showed up at her house a while ago hinting heavily you’ve got relevant dirt.”

“Yeeeaaah.” Mac sighs, looking sideways as if contemplating how to answer. Rolls her head in a circle like she’s prepping for a fight. “Your mom might have asked me a few tech-related questions when we talked on the phone last night, which made me suspect shenanigans. But honestly, Peanut, I’m positive she’s got a plan.”

“What KIND of plan?” Leilani’s voice rises on the question, and Mac sighs, the same way she always does when Dad gets overdramatic. “A sensible one, or a Veronica Mars Special?”

“She wants to stay long enough to do something expensive,” Mac says. “And I promise that’s all I know. Look, I need to run, Max has this complicated betting pyramid running on the game he’s watching, and he’s beckoning me over to check the math. Call in the morning if you’re still worried. I’ll do what I can to help track them down.”

“Fine,” Leilani murmurs, disconnecting, and locates peppers and a big knife.

It takes half an hour of methodical salad preparation to make her calm enough to trust her parents are fine. Keith appears periodically to locust up baked goods, and the dog yips at rabbits through the window. No doubt Mom preferred to ensure her kids’ births via some high-school choice, WITHOUT being hindered by armed strangers. They’ll come home when the job is done.

Leilani manages, by virtue of habit, to feed both boy and dog and double-check homework, then dons a wrap dress and coaxes Keith into driving. The whole time she’s watching, however, as her charisma-bomb daughter charms yet another audience? She’s fretting about Dad, and what, exactly, Mom’s made him do.

So she smiles and cheers by rote, palm clasped over her phone to catch any vibration. Begs off drinks in the pub with Brook and her many friends, since celebrating with the middle-aged is not a college-student priority. She’s too distracted to make small talk with hipsters anyway, and she’d hate to cramp the kid’s style.

Once home, she kicks off her shoes and pads into the study, where the lockbox she brought back with her rests on the desk. Glares at it balefully, recalling how Dad murmured, “Just a precaution,” with a half-smirk, patting the cube gently as if to make it stay.

Yeah, it’s a precaution like the letter the Navy gave her when she was ten, a month after he went MIA. The cube lurks on the blotter, a ticking bomb, and she finds she can’t look away.

She falls asleep on the couch--makeup, vintage Karan and all--and wakes to Saturday-morning sunlight with a quick-blinking, heart-pounding gasp. Checks her messages and the smart app that monitors her folks’ house. Bites her lip when she comes up empty.

Leilani sits, staring at nothing, until her watch strikes nine and the box unlocks with a hiss-click. Then she crosses the room to extract the envelope inside, and steels herself to read.

XXXXX

It takes almost an hour to get through Veronica Mars’ Slipstream Adventures, as told in Dad’s tidy-but-giant looping cursive. When she’s done she folds the pages carefully into the envelope, then muffles her scream with both hands.

The dog begins scrabbling at the locked door (she doesn’t remember locking it, when did she lock it?) Keith knocks cautiously and calls “Everything all right?” She smirks, because sure. She’s just dandy.

“Fine,” she shouts back, already dialing Tony, who answers with, “Leilani, it’s only nine in the morning and this meeting is really imp…”

“I couldn’t care less if you’re genuflecting to the Pope,” she snarls, confident her sleep-mussed hair and smeared mascara lend appropriate urgency. “Excuse yourself and get to my house FAST. We have a huge fucking problem.”

“Fine.” He accompanies the word with the long-suffering eye roll he likely learned from their mother in the womb. “But if I get sued because you can’t chill for a few hours, you’re paying my legal fees.”

She sticks out her tongue at empty air, the height of maturity, and goes to wash her face and locate jeans. When he comes sauntering in a full twenty minutes later (in a six-thousand-dollar suit with no tie because he’s SUAVE like that) she’s pacing. Her hair cloud’s probably visible from space, she’s pulled at it so much while thinking.

“So what is all…this?” He gestures to encompass her disarray. She favors him with a Dad Smirk because nothing puts him on the defensive more.

“They BOTH went time-traveling.” She over-enunciates so he’ll get the subtext. “AND ditched the security guard in charge of protecting them. My guess is Mom plans to stay in the past for YEARS. The lockbox Dad left us opened this morning, and just…READ this!”

She thrusts the letter at him and he takes a seat in her green chintz chair, twitching his trouser leg aside like some European prince. Speeds through the pages in silence, twice as fast her dyslexic ass managed, while she paces and taps and frets. When he’s done, he stares at the last paragraph for a while before pinning her with dark, serious eyes.

 “So she had a breakdown, then.” Leilani can tell he’s upset by the inflectionless way he says it. “Mom, I mean, after she lost her second baby. I knew that messed her up, based on her expression the one time it was mentioned in my hearing. But I didn’t realize she went off the rails for a while. Poor mom, she must’ve taken it hard.”

“Say what now?” Leilani scowls, because of COURSE he’d frame loss of control as deviant. “Mom’s never been emotionally messy in her life. And Dad says, right there on page one, the Mom-spirit-traveling happened back in COLLEGE.”

“But she TOLD him after the baby, and before I was born,” he says, in the obnoxiously-patient tone that makes his sister’s teeth clench. “After HE started time-traveling for REAL. Grieving people can do crazy things sometimes to feel in control. And you know how much she needs to be in charge when times are tough.”

“Ugh, you always choose the most Sartre-esque possible explanation,” Leilani says. “No, Tony, for your information, she did NOT lose it when Dad was doing the Coronado Experiment. If anything, she just turned into more of a supermom, while simultaneously going to med school full-time. I only remember seeing her cry once. She didn’t even like it much when I got upset, and I was in THIRD GRADE.”

“Because if she did lose it, she’d be obvious? Come on, you know that’s not Mom. She’d cry behind a locked door and go overboard in some way that seemed functional…just like this letter describes. Dad’s the only person she’d tell this kind of story, too; and he’d believe anything she said, because that’s how they are.”

Leilani crosses her arms. “So you’re saying that, because Mom loses her shit unobtrusively, she can’t possibly have spoken the truth? I mean, we know time travel’s real, theoretically it’s not impossible she went there first.”

“I’m not sure WHAT I’m saying.” He drums his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Do YOU think that because she didn’t give you twenty-four-seven focus every second of your youth, or openly show grief, she has no human weaknesses? That’s projecting. You think Dad’s the sole person in this family who’s got emotions, because his are the only ones large enough for you to see.”

“Bullshit. It’s just Dad’s always warm and KIND!” Her voice rises in volume with every word. “Look, I love Mom. And I know she loves me, she takes care of us all the time without ever complaining. But the way she withholds affection when people don’t meet her standards…admit it, man. It hurts to be on the receiving end.”

Tony, or Dominic, or whatever he’s calling himself this week, shrugs, one of the lazy, practiced glamour-boy gestures she privately calls his Movie Star Poses ™. “I wouldn’t know,” he says, at his blandest. “I’ve never done anything of which she didn’t approve.”

“Ugh!” Leilani throws up her hands. “Seriously? THIS is the moment you choose to pull petty dick Mom-likes-me-better moves?”

“I’m not trying to be a dick!” he protests, finally showing signs of strain. And that’s probably true--it’s all subconscious, his competitiveness. “I’m just saying, you and I see our folks differently.”

She’s so much older than her brother she’s almost a third parent, meaning any sibling rivalry’s accompanied by guilt. But it’s so FRUSTRATING, sometimes, the way Tony floats through life, Neptune High Prom King and Master of the Universe. The way his primary Echolls trait is glamour, while hers is emotional messiness. And an impulsive tendency to go too far.

Of course, the fact that he was fending off cheerleaders and Ivy League acceptances while she coped with an infant, toddler, weight problem and dissolving marriage may color the enduring resentment. She’s never completely recovered from those events—whereas he’s yet to have an actual problem.

“And if we don’t figure out where they went and how to retrieve them,” she says, “We won’t see them anywhere, ever again. So quit posturing like this is an Annie Leibovitz photo shoot and focus, please.”

“Fine.” He pushes out of the chair with a sudden, cranky burst of energy. “Consider me focused. Look, it’s clear that whether ‘Slipstreaming’ happened to her or not, Mom and Dad believe it did. And reading between the lines…” he taps the letter against his palm, “I think Mom plans to personally supervise the events Dad described here. Make sure they play out the way she wants again.”

Leilani shakes her head. “The guy at Atreon said they went to summer 2006! I wasn’t born until 2007, so why get there a year early?”

“Wait, you talked to a guy at Atreon?” He huffs exasperation. “Why do you always omit critical DETAILS?”

“I talked to TWO guys at Atreon,” she says, thinking _come on_. Like she’d freak out BEFORE pursuing leads. “One gave me the runaround, then avoided my calls. The other said they’ve sent a retrieval team, but are trying to keep the disappearance under wraps. Also, I spoke with Wallace and Mac, both of whom talked to Mom before she left and seem to have inside info. Mac said stop by tomorrow, if the situation doesn’t improve.”

“Great! Problem solved.” He throws up his hands. “Let’s touch base with the dude who spilled details, have him notify us when they’re found. If they’re not, visiting Mac will be our second step.”

“No can do,” Leilani says, with bite. “He called me anonymously. Said thanks to some NDA, even telling me our folks ran could get him sued.”

“Why does ANYBODY believe NDA’s are binding?” Tony rolls his eyes, accustomed by wealth and status to rules bending in his favor. “Fine, no sweat, we’ll track the call.”

He starts scrolling through his wristphone contacts and Leilani asks acidly, “How, exactly? There’s no evidence of a crime, DA’d never issue a warrant.”

“I’m pinging Aunt Cindy now,” he says patiently. “She owes us, if she knows more about this situation than she was willing to tell. And she won’t stress about breaking rules if it helps us bring them home.”


	4. None Were Level on the Mind, Nobody up at His Word

REDUX--LOGAN--2018

 

Logan’s both poorly rested and undercaffeinated when he reports for mandatory counseling the next morning. So while it’s weird to see a new shrink at the Medical Center, especially one who’s scarily squared-away and outranks him, he’s not initially alarmed.

Ten minutes in, though, when he’s debriefed the entire story twice without ever being asked how he feels, suspicious adrenaline has banished all signs of tiredness.

“So to recap,” Dr. Irons-his-undershirt says, flipping back a page in his tidy and copious notes, “You removed your helmet and cast it aside when you began running towards your mother. But when you came back to awareness in the cockpit, the helmet was still in place.”

“Right,” Logan says, steepling his fingers, and refrains from fidgeting by sheer force of will. “Because I can’t remove headgear in a millisecond. And also, I was unconscious.”

The doctor stares at him for a moment, expressionless, before turning back to his notes. “If this happens again,” he says, a statement which rapidly increases Logan’s anxiety level, “I want you to observe every nuance of events with extreme care. But JUST observe, don’t interact. And don’t remove any part of your gear. Is that clear?”

_As mud,_ Logan wants to say. _Because me passing out while flying the world’s most expensive Hornet should be the LAST thing you pencil-pushers want. And if I hallucinate myself stripping naked, how the fuck will you know?_ But he recognizes an order when he hears one, so, “Sir, yes sir,” is all he says.

The guy frowns—likely hoping for a more obsequious answer—then nods and says, “Dismissed.”

Logan fails to control a quirk of brows as it dawns on him no therapy will happen. But the guy’s too fascinated by his transcript to notice; so Logan gives himself a ‘well, then’ knee-pat and makes for the door.

His cell beeps in his pocket as he strides down the hall, and he extracts it to read a text from Veronica. _How’d the early morning soul-baring go?_

Briefly, he considers filling her in on the meeting’s patent weirdness. But she’s got enough to worry about, and his concerns are nebulous, anyway. _I’ll need hats a good two sizes smaller_ , he types as he walks. _Luckily, as you’re so fond of telling me, my head started out too big._

_Just don’t let them shrink anything important,_ she writes back, and he smiles. Reflects that she must still be worried, since she’s not usually chatty about his minutiae on her heavily-weighted test days.

_I’ll make sure to remind them certain parts belong to you,_ he types, and adds, _knock that endocrinology midterm dead_. Grins at the lips emoji she sends in response as he strides out into the sun.

It’s a beautiful day to be done working—but despite blue skies and sunshine, Logan’s sense of unease lingers. He’s always loved the Navy because its rules are strict and clear, maxim number one being _impaired pilots don’t fly_. So this lax view of job fitness makes him wonder what’s more important…the top-secret plane he’s testing, or his role inside it, as guinea pig.

Donning the sunglasses stashed in his pocket, he folds his arms and takes a minute to consider his next move. Then he turns towards the building where unlucky aviators surf desks, hoping Brad Davies is still in the doghouse.

Logan’s always liked to think his innately lovable public persona tempers the fact that he’s kind of a dick. Davies, however, has no such saving grace. His style of cockiness gets frats suspended and brokerages fined, and worst of all, he lacks subtlety. He’s wearing the required summer uniform, while ill-temperedly attempting paperwork, but he’d look more at home in a Gordon Gekko power suit.

With a small internal sigh, because this is not the type of person to whom he voluntarily TALKS, Logan seats himself at his own desk. Taps a pencil thoughtfully on the blotter and waits to be noticed and approached.

It doesn’t take long. Davies is too full of himself to actively seek gossip, but the ladies’ knitting circle that’s the NAS North Base rumor mill has clearly been humming. He double-takes, upon noticing Logan’s sprawl, and says, “Figures they grounded you too.”

“Does it?” Logan murmurs, keeping an eye on the admin refilling coffee, to make sure they’re not overheard. “I’ve been at a loss all day.”

“Heard they put you through the MRI.” The douche dons a ‘gotcha’ expression and sits smugly back. “You should have stonewalled. That’s my move next time, I’m done letting white-coated morons treat me like a lab rat.”

“Better than literally crashing and burning,” Logan says mildly, drawing a question mark on the blotter corner. “I’m assuming, based on this unsolicited confidence, you passed out at the controls.”

“Passed OUT?” Davies scoffs. “Come on, we’ve all seen your E! True Hollywood Story profile, surely you know what a blackout feels like. Aren’t you supposed to be a smart guy?”

“Smart enough to know what I saw,” Logan says, going for maximum provocation. “A brief hallucination, lasting less than a second. All my tests came back clean.”

“Hallucination my ASS! I was THERE!” he lowers his voice as an Ensign passing through with papers glances over, concerned, then repeats. “Right there, in the car, the day Ricky hit the concrete divider. Mr. Brightside was playing on the radio; he had on his Evanescence shirt, and it was brand NEW.” He shoves the pile of papers he’s been completing away. “Ricky was never the same. But the day the accident happened for real? I was down with mono. I stayed home.”

Logan frowns, because the similarity to his own experience is inescapable; and Davies takes this as disbelief, shoving back from his desk. “Yeah, screw you, Echolls, you pampered Hollywood shit. I know what I saw, and I know what it means. You need to fucking wise up.”

He storms out of the building, as heads pop up across the cube farm to watch, and Logan rushes to pursue. Catches Davies a few feet from the door, plants himself in the guy’s face so he’ll pay attention and says, “Wise up to WHAT, man?”

“To the fact that we’re rats in their maze!” Davies throws up his hands, advancing towards Logan like he wishes he was tall enough to loom. “Connect the dots, moron—or did you bribe your way through physics class to get this job?”

Logan’s right hand quivers with the need to fold and flex, that hot, unkillable urge to show insubordinate douchebags their place. But like good old Clint once said, self-respect leads to self-discipline, and besides…there are witnesses. So he just says, mildly, “Maybe this hasn’t occurred to you, but I’m the only person around who can vouch for your sanity. Do you really think pissing me off is smart?”

“You manipulative-ass motherfu…” Davies starts, going nose-to-nose and sinking into a Raging Bull posture; but then someone from across the tarmac calls, “LIEUTENANT COMMANDER DAVIES!” and Logan knows it’s time to walk away. He lifts his hands, palms out, _no harm, no foul_. Allows himself one ever-so-faint smirk as he retreats, and the high-volume dressing-down commences.

XXXXX

Half an hour later, Danny Campos tracks him to the on-base Del Taco, where he’s picking at a Carne Asada plate and brooding, instead of surfing out his angst like a reasonable person. Theirs is an odd-couple friendship, because Logan’s a pilot and Campos is a SEAL. But they’re the only ones from Neptune, they’ve known each other since jump school—and both of them talk too much to make ignoring each other feasible.

“Well you look like shit,” is how Campos greets him, setting down a tray with three separate plates on it and beginning to unload.

“Gee, thanks.” Logan shoves imitation-cheese nachos aside with one finger. “And after I went to so much trouble this morning perfecting my clean, close shave.”

“PLUS you’re making Quantico-Veronica faces at anyone who ventures too close,” Danny continues, sitting, and peels foil back from an extra-large burrito. “So I guess those rumors I’ve been hearing are true.”

“Ah, the gossips are working overtime.” Logan pops a bite of beef in his mouth and chews unenthusiastically. “What’s the consensus?”

Campos cocks his head. “Anders saw you headed into the shrink’s office, Trujillo said they took the root huffer into Schect’s super-secret hangar this morning…and six separate people told me you got in Davies’ face half an hour ago, made him totally fucking lose it. ‘Course that guy’s been a mess all month. They need to NJP his ass before he crashes a fifty-million dollar jet into a mountain.”

“Yeah, and now I know why.” Logan sinks lower in his chair, runs his hands through his unsatisfyingly short hair, and resists the urge to sigh. “Pretty sure I’m the variable in the experiment I signed up for, and the deeper I dig for details, the worse this mess stinks. All highly classified, of course, so nobody with sense will tell me squat.”

“Another fine Navy day.” Danny cocks a brow at his second burrito, so Logan picks it up and tries a bite. Makes a face and puts it down, because Campos has a thing for sour cream that borders on pathology. “So you figured you’d go after someone WITHOUT sense, and chose Davies? Didn’t the shrink make you use your words, so you wouldn’t feel like picking a fight, after?”

“Hey, I needed information,” Logan says. “And I didn’t break equipment OR bones, even though that would have been SO satisfying.”

“Fair enough.” Danny shrugs and keeps right on eating. “Just keep your undiagnosed-ADD-having head in the game; and quit starting shit on base, before the shrink stops talking and starts prescribing. It’s important right now that you be here for your kid. So don’t fuck up your shot just because the brass acts squirrely.” He points with a tortilla chip. “I’m telling you, dude, speaking as someone sent to every tropical shithole on the planet to do every sketchy secret job imaginable? Their plans nearly ALWAYS stink.”

“Now if I agree with you, it’s unbecoming of my status as an officer--and if I don’t, I’m a liar. DILEMMA.” Logan sets the burrito down, and indulges in a sigh after all. “God, I thought I could eat anything after years of mess food on the boat. Turns out even I have limits.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing Veronica finally learned how to cook.” Danny swirls a nacho through cheese and stuffs it in his maw. “How’s she handling you being around 24/7, anyway? Things better, or you getting on her nerves?”

“Hmmm.” Logan takes a sip of his Coke. “Heard the one about the dumbass who makes life worse every time he tries to fix it?”

“Sure, but it’s not like she’s unfamiliar with your ineptitude,” Danny says. “She must have coping mechanisms.”

Logan flattens his brows in silent, sardonic reply. “V’s calmer, now that her support network’s nearby. More relaxed because I’m safe, more affectionate. But thing is, all three of us in that house, we’re control freaks—we don’t do well with change. And honestly, until my last year’s up and she’s seen me cash out, I feel like she’ll stay the way she was in high school. Scared, driven, closed off…terrified I’ll knock her up or die. She knew something was up with me last night, too. Which means I’ve unwittingly saddled her with another stressor.”

“Hiding shit to protect Veronica is a sucker’s game,” Danny opines, sitting back with iced tea. “Anything she doesn’t know now, she’s bound to learn before you confess.”

“If I don’t protect her, who will?” Logan asks. “Everybody else is too terrified of her wrath to disobey. And God knows she needs protection, even if she’ll never admit it. If she’d had an inkling about Davies, for example? She’d have beaten me to him today, and left him rocking uncontrollably in some corner, consequences be damned.”

“Awww, ain’t love grand.” Danny grins at him over the cup. “Maybe hire someone to teach her diplomacy for Christmas.”

“I miss the days when she had criminals to focus on punishing.” Logan spins his straw in a circle with a fingertip. “Kept her too busy to over-control her life, even when I went through hairy deployments. But now it’s non-stop Med school, and she doesn’t even seem to enjoy the work, man. She’s just trying to fix something that can’t be fixed, stop a disaster that’s already over. I’m worried she sees this degree as a talisman before trying for another kid, too…and at this point I’m not sure I WANT more. I’m ambivalent enough about parenting a boy without her issues coming into the mix.”

“But you’re helping her get the degree anyway,” Danny says. “Because that’s what people who love others do. Give them space to make mistakes, and compassion afterwards.”

“Dude I went to Test Pilot School because I wanted to be an astronaut,” Logan says. “Changing plans because I love her is my whole current deal.”

“See, this is why I’m not married.” Danny sets his empty cup on his plate, starts gathering trash. “It’s too fucking hard, on top of a job that’s already a bitch. But I do get that Veronica was a winning hand you couldn’t leave behind on the table.”

“You forget,” Logan says, with a trace of bitterness. “I’M still not married, either.”

“But you will be, someday,” Danny chides. “Unless you manage to fuck it up. Which I would recommend you not do; you aren’t ever going to love another woman the way you love her. And you know it.”

Logan nods, because it’s the truth, and then his phone rings in his pocket. The premonition strikes before he answers that here’s another part of his day destined to suck ass. And as usual, his intuition’s flawless.

XXXXX

He pulls into the visitor lot at Silver Strand Elementary with a sense of foreboding, despite its non-threatening sand-and-turquoise color scheme. Nothing could be more innocent than the kid-made ocean mural, the curved roof designed to look like a wave.

Maybe he prefers to leave groveling duty to Veronica because all his personal childhood visits to the principal’s office were followed by beatings—or maybe she’s just the parent most often available. But as Logan hunches in an undersized plastic chair in the waiting room with a glumly silent Peanut beside him, he thinks perhaps neither is the case.

Mostly, it’s because Peanut loves this school. And the expulsion-authority-having principal is his twelfth-grade English teacher Mrs. Murphy, who’s been wise to his bullshit since 2005.

“So what exactly did you do?” he asks his kid, elbowing her so she’ll stop doodling on her sneaker. She shoots him a look out of big, brown, guardedly-remorseful eyes, but just shrugs, and his heart sinks. Whatever happened, clearly it’s her fault.

He opens his mouth to probe, but the office door opens and Murphy stands in the frame, gesturing them inside. She’s gone completely grey in the last ten years, and wears her hair in a bun--but otherwise, she’s unchanged. Same cheap and shapeless dark clothes, same spark of intelligence in a hangdog face. Same dead-inside-since-1975 attitude; surprised by nothing, and mordantly amused by human frailty.

Logan knows she cares about kids because she cared about HIM, even at his most unlovable—he’s sure she pegged him as the car-on-a-flagpole perpetrator, but didn’t give him up. So he wants her fighting in his daughter’s corner…but isn’t sure what cards to play to ensure it.

“Lieutenant Echolls.” Murphy shakes his hand, a flash of amusement crossing her face at the honorific as she gestures for them to sit. “Nice to see you here on time, and in uniform, no less.”

“The military’s had a salutary effect on my punctuality,” he says drily, which almost evokes a smile. Marginally, he relaxes. “So what’s she in for?”

Murphy sits back, crossing her hands on the blotter. “Passing a top-ten Xeroxed list of bullies around the school,” she says, and yeah, that’s definitely amusement. “Containing evidentiary photographs. Leilani seems to have inherited her mother’s investigatory fervor, as well as your verbal acumen.” She hands him an example of the flyer in question, and he winces as he notes that two of said bullies are teachers.

He gazes down at the document, trying not to be too visibly proud. “One of these kids is punching a classmate in the face. I have it on good authority that hitting triggers suspension.”

“I can’t discuss disciplinary measures taken against other students,” Murphy chides. “Although I will say all claims of misbehavior on the part of staff are automatically investigated. I would like to drive home to Miss Echolls, however, that right to privacy and a fair trial, so to speak, are principles on which democracy was founded. Concerns about violation of school rules should be privately presented to me, not tacked up on the bulletin board in the third-grade hall.”

Logan lifts a brow at Peanut, who holds his gaze defiantly. “Did you turn over all your evidence to Principal Murphy when she asked?”

Peanut nods, and he continues, going for broke with the hyperbole, “And do you understand that your mom and I agree completely about the importance of democracy? And that preserving it is a big reason I joined the Navy?”

She nods again, reluctantly, no doubt wondering why he’s playing the war-hero card. He turns back to Murphy. “So what can we do to make this right?”

“One-day suspension.” She taps papers into a pile. “And upon return, a three-page essay from Miss Echolls on the importance of observing due process, left right here on my desk. Also, I’d like to make sure your entire family understands—bullying and harassment are not tolerated at Silver Strand. Not by the individuals described in this document, should they be found guilty…and not by the document’s creator. Even if she was agitating in good faith for positive change. Are we clear?”

“If we didn’t trust you to do the right thing,” Logan says, “we wouldn’t have enrolled our child here. Thanks for the heads-up.”

Murphy rises to shake his hand again, and the smile that’s been threatening breaks, faintly, through. “Seems you’ve got a budding journalist on your hands, Lieutenant. You might want to consider summer camps designed to hone that talent. Maybe someday she can write LEGITIMATE exposes.”

Logan grins, wondering if she’s remembering Veronica’s bomb-threat column like he is. Tells his kid, “Come on, you. Time to go home and face the music.”

XXXXX

He waits till they’re securely shut inside the Rover, motoring down Highway 75, to ask his subdued daughter, “So what prompted this? Revenge, or justice? I mean, I get that you felt you had no choice.”

The expression she turns on him is both offended and fiery. “Those people deserved punishment! Mr. Simmons tells kids who aren’t white they’ll never be worth a dang, and Tommy Atwell hits GIRLS!”

Logan’s fingers tighten on the wheel as he makes a note to keep an eye on Tommy Atwell. But he just says, “What’s the school rule for reporting bullying?”

Peanut puts her Converse up on the dash and starts tying knots in the laces. “Tell your teacher,” she says.

“And did you?”

She flashes him a quick, exasperated glance. “Mrs. Connor said she didn’t see anything, and she can’t punish people without proof. And I should ignore bullies and walk away. But you and mom would never walk away! So I decided to find her stupid proof.”

It sounds logical to him, but then again, he was raised by wolves. “Did you mention any of this to your mother?”

Bronze curls swish as she shakes her head. “I would’ve told YOU, but you keep working late.”

“Me, but not Mom?” He suppresses the surge of guilt. “Why, pray tell?”

“She’s busy,” Peanut says, sulkily. “And I don’t like the face she makes when she gets mad at me.”

“This face?” he asks, contorting his features into a Kabuki rage mask, the kind of ridiculous exaggeration that usually makes her laugh. Not today, though. Peanut just looks up at him through giant, watery eyes with an uncertainty that breaks his heart.

“Her expression just goes blank,” she says in a hurry, pitch rising. “Like all her smiley funniness turns off in a SECOND. Like she doesn’t even ca….ca…CARE!”

The kid bursts into sobs, then, and Logan has to pull off the highway into a cul-de-sac to cope. As soon as he stops the car, Peanut climbs into his lap and clings, and a good five minutes of storm follows while he strokes her hair and murmurs nonsense. He feels at a loss, because he knows that Veronica face well; and he remembers how being on the receiving end hurt, before he figured out the extent of her passionate adoration.

“Your mom adores you,” he assures his daughter, holding her small, fragile body close against his chest. “She’s not so great at showing feelings sometimes, because hers are so strong they scare her. But I happen to know she loves you VERY much. Even when she’s mad.”

“Promise?” Peanut asks, and he crosses his heart. “Will she be mad at me today?”

“Want to know a secret?” Logan asks, and the kid nods, because duh. Secrets are like crack to this child. “This is exactly the kind of thing your mom would have done herself. She may PRETEND to be mad, to set a good example. But really, she’ll feel proud of you for standing up and fighting back.”

“I used her hidden camera pen,” Peanut admits, and Logan has to stifle a laugh. “She doesn’t know I know she has one, though, so don’t tell her.”

“I’ll take the secret with me to the grave.” He deposits her back in her seat and helps her fasten the belt. “Come on. You look like you could use some ice cream before we make the drive home.”

XXXXX

When they walk in the door, Veronica’s got furniture stacked on furniture, and is furiously vacuuming. Normally this would alarm him, since cleaning is her favorite stress-reliever; but she’s listening to earbuds and shimmying while she works, and there’s a half-drunk glass of wine on the coffee table.

Tugging Peanut back outside where it’s less deafening, he squats to rest his hands on her shoulders. “OK here’s our game plan—you hang back, and watch in secret while I break the news to your mom. You can see for yourself how not mad she’ll be. When I call you in, though-- and this is critically important--pretend to be sorry, even if you’re not. Because your mom acts tough, but she’s the world’s biggest sucker. She will fold like a cheap newspaper if she thinks you’re about to cry.”

Peanut nods, gripping the strap of her purple backpack tighter, and Logan leads her into the foyer, lays a finger over his lips. Saunters towards the living room and leans in the doorway, enjoying the view as he watches Veronica work.

It takes her a minute to notice him, and shut off the vacuum; he smiles into the sudden silence as she takes out the earbuds. “I feel like I should have a tip handy,” he says, and she rolls her eyes, but goes on tiptoe to kiss him hello.

“I got your message.” She picks up the wine and enjoys a sip. “Sorry I couldn’t call back, I was meeting with my advisor. How bad were her misdeeds this time?”

“One-day suspension, plus a three-page paper about due process, which is plenty stringent for a child who still draws hearts over her i’s. Oh, and Murphy seems to think Peanut has a future in journalism.”

He pulls the flyer from his pocket and hands it over, appropriating the glass so he can sip as she reads. Ronica barks a laugh then covers her mouth, gaze shifting guiltily to the ceiling below Peanut’s room. Logan smiles, glad his faith in his fiancee’s big heart hasn’t led Leilani astray.

“I knew this Atwell brat was trouble.” She shakes her head, handing the page back, and Logan figures Atwell better watch his six. “How’d you handle Murphy?”

“Appealed to her patriotism and latent activist sensibilities,” he says. “She’s always had a soft spot for me, even though she’s got my number.”

“Like so many of us I could name.” Veronica yanks the vacuum plug from the wall and begins to coil the cord, wiping her brow with the back of one hand. “You want to finish the housework while I go up and talk to her? I doubt Peanut even knows what due process IS.”

“I’ll bring her down. You sit and drink your wine. You must have had a day, if it’s driven you to tidy.”

“Ah, how soon they forget.” She sips as requested, studying him over the rim. “It’s our week to host family barbecue. Dad’ll be here bright and early to prep the grill.”

Logan groans, which inspires her to smirk and toast him, and crosses back into the hall. “She LAUGHED!” Peanut whispers, beckoning him close so he can hear. “And now Tommy Atwell’s going DOWN.”

“In flames,” Logan agrees. “All right, put those acting genes to work, kid. Eyes as big as possible, and don’t sass back.”

Peanut creeps into the den behind him, twisting her backpack strap and doing a good impression of a penitent. Veronica crosses her arms, looking as stern as a five-foot-nothing slice of blonde ambition can, and starts lecturing in that soft, low kitten voice that soothes Logan’s dreams. Every time she pauses, Peanut nods; he can actually see the moment when V’s face softens before she goes in for a hug.

_Good_ , he thinks, watching his two favorite girls work out their angst _, love is home and home is love_. Moments like this are why he’ll never stop trying to put a second ring on his perennial fiancee’s finger… even though she invariably turns him down.

XXXXX

Veronica insists on participating in story time that night (and correcting all his dramatic-effect Nancy Drew inaccuracies), so it’s almost ten before they’re alone in the clean, quiet den. She’s brought the bottle of red out with some crackers and cheese, and she’s curled under his arm on the couch like it’s where she belongs.

He exhales as peace steals over him, stretching his sweatpants-clad legs out to prop his feet beside the hors d’oeuvres. “So how’d the test go, anyway?”

“As if you didn’t know. I aced it, naturally.”

“Naturally.” He watches her pick up a chunk of cheese and toy with it, too tired at the moment to eat or drink himself. “God, what a day. Let’s hope Clemmons turns up at whatever high school she attends, or I’m honestly worried we’re screwed.”

“With your genes and mine mixed? Poor kid doesn’t stand a chance.” She nibbles the edge of the cheese, like a small and thoughtful mouse, then asks in a way she thinks is blasé, “Was today better at work?”

“I wasn’t on base that long,” he says, turning his face towards her, because apparently this conversation requires focus. “Just shrink, paperwork and lunch, then the Peanut Dilemma commenced.”

She studies his face, frowning slightly, and he adds, “Danny Campos says hello. He tracked me down to tell me all the latest. Fed me possibly the worst burrito ever.”

“Danny Campos is a bigger gossip than Carrie Bishop.” She folds her arms. “If he went looking for you, it’s because you did something gossip-WORTHY.”

“Yeah, I hallucinated while flying,” he says, with a discouraging, dry intonation. “Shockingly, that’s frowned upon.”

“Why do you think it was a hallucination?” She turns her whole body to face him.

“Because I saw something that didn’t happen,” he says, patiently, Davies’ _I was THERE!_ echoing in his brain. “And because what else could it have been?”

She opens her mouth to reply, shuts it. Essays the world’s most unconvincing shrug and goes back to her cheese. He tries to wait her out, since obviously she’s hiding things she semi-wants to spill. But he’s exhausted from ineptly handling bullshit. And tomorrow, he has to be on his best behavior for Keith.

There’s an unnoticed after-effect, he reflects, as Veronica snuggles closer and he drifts into a half-doze, to chaotic childhoods, in which the possibility of pleasure or pain can manifest at any time. They teach kids there are no boundaries. Logan was given Valium to help him nap, told to take any starlet in the room upstairs as a reward for straight A’s. He had a tutor whose job was to do his homework, a Queen Bee girlfriend who blew him on the first date; and the crack in his shoulder blade from that backhand into an empty pool still aches sometimes when it rains. He’s known since early elementary how to eat a five-course meal with appropriate silverware, produce a pithy sound bite, turn his good side towards the photographer. Lie like a pro. But when his daughter tells him a school friend’s gossiping behind her back, he never knows what advice to give. ‘Plant drugs in her locker and get her expelled,’ feels like overkill, somehow. ‘Hurt her like she hurt you,” just seems cruel.

Before he realized he could copy Keith Mars if he was ever at a loss, handling life tasks, Logan had a system for faking normalcy. He’d choose a movie with a character he admired and memorize it; the dialogue, the mannerisms, the facial expression, the vocal intonations, until he could freestyle the imitation at will. Wyatt from Easy Rider was his favorite, the boneless, effortless cool, but he liked Han Solo too—snide butter-wouldn’t-melt half-disguising cynical charm, and a ruthless knack for eliminating enemies. Sometimes he feels Han Solo’s his real father, more than Aaron ever was.  Sometimes he wishes he’d chosen more law-abiding imaginary role models.

He gets the sense, frequently, that Veronica sees him as a wild animal…certainly she figured out pretty quick he needed help learning right from wrong. She’ll mock him mercilessly for taking pains over what hair he’s allowed, but never mentions his chronic insomnia. She’ll cackle, trouncing him at skee-ball, but demonstrate the proper way to scrub sinks without a single syllable of snark.  Even during that dark period in high school when they were constantly at war, she never aimed for his soft spots, just punished his misdeeds. After explaining, of course, in excruciating detail, exactly how wrong those misdeeds WERE. She’s ruthless but honorable, and he’s always admired that about her, even before respect and attraction blossomed into love. So he’s always tried to act the same.

Today he told Danny it was his job to protect Veronica, even from her own worst instincts, and that statement was absolutely true. But what he didn’t say is that it’s the kind of protection a cast-off wolf offers the one human who’ll let him sleep by her fire. He never wants Ronica to feel that choosing him was wrong. And he never wants her frightened, because he let bad things lurking beyond the firelight get too near.


	5. What's a Con Artist If She Doesn't Have Brains?

REPRISE--LOGAN--2058/2006

It’s been more than twenty years since Logan last drove up the Pacific Coast Highway—more than fifteen since it ceased existing—but he still remembers the route, like it’s in his bones, alongside the ever-present arthritic ache. The way the sun glints down, dappling the trees and sandy hills and the thrashing blue Pacific; the way the breeze, when he cracks the window, smells like salt. It’s a deeply comforting, favorite-shirt sense-memory; and even though he has no idea where they’re headed or why, he’s content. Turns out sometimes, you CAN go back home.

“So not to throw a wrench into your master plan before the dramatic unveiling,” he tells Veronica, who’s fiddling with the radio beside him (and who smiles upon locating Nelly Furtado’s ‘Promiscuous’). “But I doubt we’ll reach our destination if you don’t tell me where to go.”

“Berkeley.” She adjusts the volume carefully, then unearths an ancient map from her voluminous, ridiculous handbag. “And be thankful I’m even LETTING you drive, Mister I-used-to-have-perfect-eyesight-and-I-won’t-admit-that’s-changed.”

“Veronica, I’ve explained this.” He weaves around a slow-moving dump truck with just enough flair to make her wrinkle her nose. “Wearing bifocals would mean I’m old, and I’m not READY to be old, yet. White-haired, maybe. Wrinkles? Add character. But if I’m too impaired to do the things that make life worth living, I’ll have to consider the possibility the end is near.”

“Oh, give me a break.” She points at a Starbucks by the side of the highway, and he obediently pulls into the exit lane. “LASIK surgery was a thing when we were children. These days—or not this current day we’re re-living, I guess, but OUR days--they can implant a whole new eyeball. You’re stubbornly causing yourself difficulty for zero reason except vanity, and in your heart of hearts, you know it.”

“If I learned anything from my mother, it was that glamour requires commitment.” His tone is virtuous, and he adds a self-deprecating quirk of lips when she snorts. “I can’t bulk up the way I once did, thanks to this fucking gout, but that’s no reason to let myself go to seed.”

“Your mother is not the card to play in this conversation,” she retorts, tapping her lips with one finger as he pulls up next to the drive-through speaker. “She never met a surgery she didn’t like.”

Logan decides it’s a losing game to argue, so he just rolls down the window, asks for an Americano, and lets her shout some elaborate Frappucino order past him like calories are going out of style. “So why Berkeley?” he asks, once they’re creeping forward, while she digs actual paper money out of the depths of her bag. “Have a hankering for tofu, or just a newfound respect for animal rights?”

“It’s where we went to college.” She hands him a twenty, smirking as he gapes. “One version of us, anyway. We need to verify we’re in the correct reality; and it’s a month before school starts, so the house must be complete.”

“I, Logan Echolls, went to Berkeley,” he says flatly. “With a bunch of Birkenstock-wearing Anthropology majors. I can’t WAIT to hear the reason for this, because I somehow have an inkling it was your idea.”

“Well, yes and no.” Abruptly, she gets busy fussing with her seatbelt. “Although in point of fact, our actual house is in Half-Moon Bay—we compromised, so you could surf.”

‘Uh-huh.” He keeps his eyes on her even as they inch forward, because looking away would let her off the hook. “That sounds completely reasonable, and like a decision I would have voluntarily made.”

“There may have been…other factors in play,” she admits, then turns a big fake smile on the barista in the window. “Hi there!” she says, like she’s about to break out pom-poms. “Any chance I can get a slice of pound cake too? We’ve been out and about, and I managed to skip breakfast.”

The kid on duty, who’s got plugs the size of quarters in his ears and is almost-incapacitatingly high, nods and wanders off. “Factors such as?” Logan prompts. She sighs.

“YOU may have been forced to join the Castle to protect me, then ordered to get me out of town,” she admits, staring determinedly out the windshield. Flashes him a defiant look. “The Castle being a secret society helmed by Jake Kane, which I managed to quietly hamstring in our reality freshman year of college.”

“Ah.” He digests this in silence. “I can see this trip is going to be an adventure in self-discovery, as I unearth all the myriad sins your seemingly-complete slipstream explanation hid.”

“Oh, and you’ve told me about everything YOU did, time-traveling?” she asks, then goes saccharine again as she accepts her sugar bomb. Logan hands off the twenty in lieu of responding, and takes an experimental sip. The drink tastes like battery acid and he can feel heartburn commencing--so he just sets it in the cup holder and passes back change.

“That’s what I thought,” she says smugly as they drive off, passing him a Tums. “I’ve got Ibuprofin in here too, by the way, in case your foot starts hurting. Don’t be too proud to ask.”

He crunches ostentatiously into the chalky tablet, turning back onto the access road. “I hope you brought a shitload of cash,” he tells her. “Because if we’re staying more than six hours, I’m buying the best espresso machine this era makes.”

“We’re staying indefinitely.” She enjoys a slug of her drink, eyes closing with bliss. “And as for funds…” she pauses to eat a bite of cake, “don’t you worry your pretty little head, I’ve got a plan.”

Logan nods, digesting this, and decides to keep his mouth shut until he knows more details. Cracks the window to admit fresh sea breeze, relaxing into the drive, and switches the radio to an oldies station. Hums tunelessly along to songs his mother loved while Veronica feeds her high-performance machine.

About half an hour down the interstate, she rouses him from his road-hypnotized alpha-wave fugue. “Probably we should pick a lot before much longer and switch out these plates. No one notices stolen cars in the middle of the night, but it’s morning, now. There’s a slight chance some resident of that non-incorporated township is dumb enough to trust the Sheriff.”

“Let me guess,” Logan says. “Lamb failed to bite the bullet here?”

“LAMB got canned as a DEPUTY from the hallowed halls of this Neptune County courthouse,” she says, with a smirk. “When the Fitzpatricks wanted a stooge, they opted for Vinnie Van Lowe.”

Logan groans; her smirk becomes a grin. “Think he’ll use the job as a springboard to Congress here, too? I feel like ‘Vinnie Van Lowe excels at deals for a price’ HAS to be one of those fated things.”

“If he doesn’t,” Veronica says, around the Frappucino’s straw, “everybody still alive in the 2030’s will miss out on quality scandals.”

“Too bad they won’t miss half the state crumbling into the ocean,” Logan says. And still, after all these years, feels faint grief. “The good half. OUR half. I can’t help wondering…would competent politicians have saved square miles?”

She pats his hand where it rests on the wheel. “Nobody can foil mother nature, babycakes. You’ve seen ‘Year Without a Santa Claus’. And I still believe it was a fitting end for Neptune--swallowed whole by the angry sea as punishment for human crimes.”

“Poisoning fish the whole way down,” he agrees, and gently squeezes her fingers.

XXXXX

They park in an alley behind a cowboy bar in Lost Hills; it’s Sunday-morning empty save for one flat-tired Trans Am. Logan uses his Leatherman to remove and replace bolts while Veronica noshes a sub, then dissolves the sanitizing tab she offers between his hands. He’s tired now—not accustomed, these days, to staying up past bedtime—but she’s fueled by furious purpose, and also drives like a bat out of hell. So he plants himself behind the wheel before she can, and sucks back an extra-large Big Gulp as they resume their journey north.

The sandy scrub gives way to hills, then mountains, as they climb into the next climate zone; the Santa Lucias, purple with shadow in the distance, offset the white-foam, crystal-blue ocean. Logan sighs, watching perfect mid-morning waves froth against the shoreline, and Veronica says, “I think we should stop to rest.”

He shoots a look at her, gratitude and amusement mixed. “Want to rent a cabin? Glen Oaks had good ones, as I recall. Not too big for a couple on their fourth honeymoon.”

“Cozy bed?” She leans her head against his shoulder. “Fire pit for cold nights, and a picturesque view of the Pacific?”

“Mmmm.” He turns to kiss her scalp as he drives onto Bixby Bridge, entertaining the fancy that they’re tightrope walkers traversing a chasm. Sunset’s tinting its white limestone rails, and lends a rosy glow to the spectacular view. “You had me at cozy bed.”

XXXXX

Her choice of cottage is the kind of compromise at which she unobtrusively excels; the quiet concern for his comfort, as always, touches him deeply. It’s a tiny, green, red-trimmed Craftsman in a patch of picturesque woods, with an orange-painted master containing a king-sized bed. A vintage cast-iron fireplace stands ready to warm a den built for two, and Adirondacks on the covered porch overlook mauve-shadowed hills. Faintly, far below, he can hear the ocean churning, in pulses, like a heartbeat.

Veronica made him stop at a deli called Bruno’s for car-trip food and dinner. She bustles around now in the fifties-style kitchenette, plating sandwiches and brewing coffee of a quality he can stomach. He accepts the painkiller she urges on him and lets her putter, settling in a wicker chair with a beer after he lights the fire. Groans as he puts up tired feet. 

“Long day at the office, dear?” she asks when she eventually settles beside him, handing over a gooey Rueben and aromatic fries. Her own meal is pasta and a can of sparkling wine, which she chugs with typical efficiency before he’s taken three bites.

“The longest,” he agrees, twining cheese around one fingertip, then sucking it clean. “It’s not every weekend a guy travels fifty years in time, with no guarantee he’ll be able to return.”

She makes a scoffing noise around a mouthful of cream-sauced penne. “You heard him,” she says. “What’s-his-name…Stanton. All we have to do is make it back to that car lot, and pods will appear to whisk us away. Piece of cake.”

“Veronica,” Logan says, patiently, setting his plate down, “we stole a car. We bought food at restaurants and rented this cabin, and you plan to stay here for years, sounds like, changing who knows how many events. The odds are pretty much zero we won’t cause a universe split.”

“But we’re wearing trackers.” She reaches into the pocket of her Peter-Pan collared shirt and removes a small round device. “I checked first thing; this was sewn into the hem of my sweater, and there’s one on your Oxford near the spare button. Surely, even if Atreon’s tech is as cutting-corners as you claim, they can find us using these.”

“From the same reality? Sure,” he says. “Assuming adequate cell towers and satellites—that’s a GPS locator, pumpkin. The problem is, we’re almost certainly not IN the exact reality where they dropped us anymore. And you heard Shelby admit yourself, multiverse mapping still doesn’t work; so how will they target us, given infinite possible variations? I only made it back from that last trip because Schnect built in redundant secret fail-safes. And I’d bet our entire fortune Schnect’s heirs steered clear of Atreon’s venture.”

“But Shelby HAS trackers,” she argues, setting down her own (empty) bowl to face him, storm-cloud intensity gathering. “I KNOW he does, I’ve read every spec and design document Mac could find. And their usage is standard operating procedure.”

“Then where’d Atreon hide them?” He shrugs. “The power source has to be consistent, so you’re talking battery the size of my fist, and that’s just for the mobile unit… which needs to feed back to a massive baseline station. My primary, for example, took up most of the simacrulum, which was about the size of this cabin, and its charge only lasted six months. Stanton should have had the mobile on him, his job being to escort us through a PR op, but when I patted him down, all I found in his pockets was small stuff, tools and weapons. Maybe he left it in the machine, and it went back with him when he was recalled?”

“Did you steal the small stuff?” she asks, then rolls her eyes at her own question. “Of course you did, once a magpie, always a magpie. Well, then, maybe Atreon figured out a way to miniaturize the tech. Or maybe it’s built into the fabric of our clothes and uses solar. I know there are med sensors for chronic conditions that work on those principles. And I can’t believe Stanton would be dumb enough to walk away from the base unit without following protocol.”

“It’s possible,” he says, taking her non-fork-containing hand gently and pressing it between his. “But it’s also possible we’re stranded, and no good will come from making choices in denial of facts, Ronica.”

She sits back, studying him, and he can practically hear her brain whirring. “So when I told you to send Stanton home and steal a car…you guessed we were committing to a one-way trip? And you just quietly came along, saying nothing, in the most totally-un-Logan-like move ever?”

“What else could I have done, Veronica?” He quirks a brow. “You’ve been planning this stunt since probably college, you weren’t going to take no for an answer. And once I realized you intended to multiverse-travel yourself…it’s not like I’d leave your side. I adore the kids more than just about anything, but…till death do us part, remember? You and I are a team.”

Her expression gentles, head tilting sideways, and her mouth twists as if she might cry. “I love you,” she says, powder-soft, and climbs gratifyingly onto his lap. “I know I don’t say so enough, but it’s how I’ve always, always felt.”

“I never doubted for a second.” He winks, offering a crooked smile, and she practically starts to glow. Twines arms around his neck in what for her is extravagant affection, pulling him down and close. He goes, because he’ll let her lead him anywhere--into trouble or happiness, danger or, best-case-scenario, her bed.

The king-sized mattress turns out to be stellar, spacious and just cushy enough. Logan’s knees appreciate its quality while he’s focused on his task.

Making love with V now, after all these years…it’s less fervid and furious, more like singing a hymn. A piece of music Logan knows so deep in his bones, he can freestyle effortlessly without thought; yet the notes never lose their resonance. Their sacred meaning.

He adores Veronica with everything in him, forever love--has enjoyed a lifetime of safety in her small and fragile arms. So sex with her is as close to worship as he gets; repaying, via pleasure, her gifts of joy and grace. She’s his altar, his ever-affirming song, and he is ardent in his all-consuming faith.

XXXXX

Logan wakes to a gentle palm on his cheek, tracing over the knob of his jaw and down. He can’t recall when she figured out he hates being startled from sleep—maybe she’s always known. He cants his neck to chase her touch, and she brushes fingertips across his lips before drifting away.

Sitting up with a yawn, he notes the door to the porch sits invitingly ajar. He stretches, scratching his chest, and stands to locate boxers on the floor. Wanders out into the cool, misty, brine-and-humus-scented morning to find her dressed in jeans in an Adirondack, sipping hot coffee. There’s a breakfast tray on the table beside her, pastries and fruit plus a steaming mug for him. He toasts her with it, sprawling in the companion chair, and selects the reddest apple.

“It really is beautiful up here,” she muses, chin square in her beverage’s steam like she enjoys the warmth. “I can’t remember the last time I saw so many trees.”

“Well these, of course, are gone where we come from,” he says prosaically. “Or rather, they’re skeletons beneath the sea floor, like the Titanic. But last time we went to Canada it was green this way, remember? Acres and acres of Christmas-smelling pines.”

She smiles—there’s still nothing his wife loves more than Christmas—and on impulse he says, “We should buy this cabin. For a home base, you know? It’s halfway between Berkeley and Neptune; and I have to admit, I’ve missed the view.” He tries a sip of coffee, smiles at the smoothness. “’Course, that would require a chunk of cash which probably wouldn’t fit even in YOUR bag.”

Veronica cocks her head, considering. “Remember when we figured out your dad diverted millions from your trust fund into Aaron’s Kidz? After which it was secretly funneled through holding companies as hush money for Charlie?”

“You mean when YOU figured it out?” he asks drily, sipping.

“Hey, YOU noticed cash was missing,” she says, ever-loyal. “If you’ll recall, you wouldn’t let me stop the payments, despite the fact that Aaron was dead—you insisted Charlie had a right. Only years later, he told us at that ill-fated dinner of Dick’s he never planned to touch a cent.”

“Mmmm, he said blood money made him complicit in Aaron’s sins.” Logan grins, reminiscent. “Or rather, yelled it at the top of his lungs. Helluva guy, my brother, although way too fucking stubborn.”

Veronica arches a brow that screams ‘pot/kettle’ but forebears to comment. “Well, I called Mac the night before our Atreon visit.” She stretches her little legs to their maximum to drag the footstool closer. “Got her to coach me on early twenty-first century bank transfers. And over the last couple hours, I’ve funneled Charlie’s blood money through the Caymans into our new account. We’ll need housing and transportation, a place to reconnect if we get separated…and this cabin’s as good as elsewhere. I think the owner could be persuaded to sell…I brought her donuts this morning and hinted heavily.”

Shaking his head, he grins at V, because where did she even find a computer? She smiles back, unrepentant, then adds, “Oh, I forgot!” Sets down her coffee to run inside, and returns with a cardboard box, which he has to lay aside his cup to accept. “I got us both phones. They’re just burners for now, but my number’s programmed into your contacts and vice versa.”

He stares at the ridiculously archaic flip cell she’s procured. It sits alongside a variety of drugstore toiletries, a complete (if cheap) change of clothes, and a People magazine with the headline ‘Children of Hollywood’. “So you can brush up,” she explains, gesturing vaguely. “On the Logan of this reality, and how he differs from you.”

“Did you even sleep?” He abandons surprise in favor of reclaiming his coffee.

“Oh, sure. You wore me out.” She winks at him and resettles, selecting a Danish and enjoying a bite. “Take your time showering; I still need to eat, then finish constructing my online identity. Next we’ll head up to Berkeley to lay eyes on Howl’s, after which I need to buy a laminator.”

Logan knows a ‘move your ass’ hint when he hears one, so he smirks and chugs the coffee, taking one last long gander at the purple mountains’ majesty. Then he gnaws a neat ring around the perimeter of the apple, sets the core precisely in the center of the tray, and collects his box to test the cabin’s water pressure.

The dual-head shower takes a while to heat up, but it doesn’t disappoint. It’s been so long since he enjoyed unlimited water, he allows himself to wallow.

XXXXX

They roll into Half Moon Bay about four hours later, passing the Ritz Carlton en route to the splashiest of waterfront neighborhoods. Logan makes his leisurely way through immaculately-kept streets, turning when she points, and parks at the edge of a cliff. Gazes out at the ocean frothing around huge rocks…and wonders if V has a clue how dangerous the surfing is, near the beach his supposedly-chill counterpart chose.

She’s not looking at the Pacific, though; she only has eyes for the house to their right. Which is, bizarrely, identical to the half-constructed, weirdly-familiar one-story in the ’09 they drove past yesterday. This version’s newly-completed—the lawn still sports dividing lines between squares of fresh sod—and also on the market. Big surprise, since its finish-out and location are worth at least five mil.

“Good,” she murmurs, staring at the for-sale sign with ‘I solved a case’ fervor. “I really DO have the world’s best memory. We’re in the exact right universe.”

Logan figures silence is the better part of valor, so he just nods. Privately, however, he finds his doppel’s urge to build the same house everywhere creepy as fuck. If this guy grew up sans Aaron, though, but WITH Lynn and her whackadoodle Hollywood friends? He could well be an only-white-wearing egomaniac who wants rose petals scattered in his path. 

It remains a mystery why V sees this reality as ‘ideal’, and why she’s still so protective of this family unit fifty eventful years later. Then again, Veronica claimed attraction to Duncan and harbored a long-lasting obsession for the Spice Girls. His wife’s taste grows quickly questionable when he’s not around to distract her.

“Any chance we could stop detecting long enough to pick up lunch?” His question jerks her out of a dog-on-point reverie, and she blinks guiltily.

“You bet.” She settles into her seat and summons a smile. “Let’s drive back up the hill and check into the hotel. You can order room service and chill, or we can hit the restaurant, then run errands together--gentleman’s choice.”

“You say that like ladies and gentlemen are present.” He puts the car in gear and gestures for her to buckle up. “And not just us, once again planning petty crimes.”

XXXXX

Logan opts for room service, since he has limited patience with strangers even when NOT laying low. Kicks back with the blue cheese burger, about which Veronica doesn’t make a single cholesterol-related comment, and reads his assigned People.

Ten minutes cements the impression that Supposedly-Ideal Logan is a goody-two-shoes, who’s got a thriving-if-inattentive mother and an unfortunate Hawaiian-shirt habit. The kid’s media presence is bizarrely wholesome—clearly THIS version never alienated his fan club—and Logan broods a bit on the injustice of fate before switching the TV to Point Break.

Meanwhile, Veronica bustles. By evening, she’s created flawless fake ID’s for both of them (Philip and Vivian Charles) as well as a joint bank account with a twenty-two year faux history. She’s also endowed them with an excellent credit rating, made an online offer on a modest Saturn they’ll pick up in the morning, and swindled someone out of the Big Sur cabin for less than a mil (furniture and fridge included).

At this point, she insists on dinner, resolutely ignoring his grumblings; and once stuffed to the gills with manicotti, she drags him to an overpriced mall called Strawflower Village. He’s hustled, in short order, through a two-hour optometrist, a wig store and a Tommy Bahama…she loads up a basket with the tackiest shirts she can find, and won’t even give him veto power. He’s allowed to pick his own everyday clothes at Nieman’s, though, while she builds herself a capsule wardrobe, all of it disappointingly utilitarian. They then swing by the personal care area, where she lets him choose both his grooming products and hers, so she can devote excessive time to comparing brands of patchouli. At last, they cab it back to the hotel, where he watches her pack matching hard-sided red suitcases.

Logan gets the patchouli, zipped into his deluxe new toiletries bag…but has the sense not to question why.

“So what’s on tap for tomorrow?” he asks instead, from his immediately re-assumed position center-couch, when she emerges from the bathroom on a cloud of steam. Then blinks, because she’s clad in baby-blue silk pajamas, and sports hair extensions that hang to mid-back.

His eyebrows lift, slowly, and she says, with a trace of defiance, “These make me look motherly and trustworthy. I’ll wear braids wound around my head, like Heidi.”

He bursts out laughing and she throws the nearest pillow at him, but allows him to tug her between his knees. He plaits two pigtails in apology, then winds them experimentally around her skull. “Nope. You still look capable of murdering someone in a dark alley.”

The smile she gives him as she leans in for a kiss is arch. “You have no idea how close to the bone that sentiment strikes.”

Tucking her against his side, he lifts the Heineken he’s been savoring slowly to his lips, and she tilts and wiggles so her head rests on his shoulder. “Tomorrow,” she says, reaching for the plate he’s just reheated and snagging a fry, “we need to pick up the Saturn and head back to Big Sur—close on the cabin, get the locks changed. We’ll stash a second set of identities and some cash there, and then…”

“Then?” he prompts, when she trails off.

The look she turns up at him is faintly regretful. “THEN,” she says, “We have to scope out a mental hospital called Hazelwood. Because we’ll need considerable access, in order for events to unfold as planned. And we don’t have a lot of time.”


	6. Headed for Sunset for the Kingdom Come

REBOOT--ANTHONY DOMINIC--2058

Dominic Echolls’ day just keeps getting shittier. Not because he slept badly, then woke at five to attend the meeting from hell (though for the record, he didn’t and did). No, this day sucks because his upcoming board presentation is Greenco’s last hope of fighting off a hostile takeover; and thanks to Murphy’s Law, his holo-projector’s finally crapped out. As a bonus, his fiancée keeps texting about tonight’s dinner-with-the-folks, at which they planned to announce their engagement. He’d love to tell her the truth—that his wild-card parents pissed off to 2006 on a whim—but they signed an NDA, which requires lawyers to untangle, and as a bonus never came home. At the worst possible time for Dom, naturally--Veronica Mars and Logan Echolls don’t do things by halves.

Ever since, his sister’s shown the kind of loose-cannon tendencies that preceded her worst stunts, back in her teens and twenties when her drama engulfed everyone. Wreaking havoc on a whim, sucking up every shred of attention, was Leilani’s favorite game. And he doesn’t care HOW much of a domestic goddess she seems to have become—that wildness still lurks inside her, somewhere.

He frowns at the desk-holo of him with Kim, smiling in formalwear at last year’s fundraiser gala, instead of testing his presentation on the just-delivered new machine. Ponders once again the mystery of his mother’s problem with his girlfriend, since there’s nothing about Kim TO dislike. She’s beautiful, intelligent, an elite lawyer born with a silver spoon, and she dresses so elegantly even his dad can’t find fault. Some women admittedly find her intimidating, but Mom’s not fazed by ANYTHING. Dom has to admit he’s puzzled by the carefully-hidden rancor. He and Kim seem perfectly matched.

The notification on his wristphone buzzes—it’s Leilani, AGAIN. Dom checks the time, ignores her call, and silences the ringer for good measure. He’ll have to touch base after the presentation…at which point, hopefully he won’t be in the sights of a corporate raider, scheming to tear up his brainchild and sell. Because nobody gets to fuck with Dom’s five-year plan; come hell or high water, he’ll be Greenco’s CEO again by forty.

“Mr. Echolls?” Sasha, his receptionist, pokes her head into his office; smiles, over-bright, looking everywhere but into his eyes. “You asked me to let you know when it was ten minutes till your meeting?”

Dom’s not in the mood for her just-out-of-college crush right now; he wants to ask, cuttingly, what’s wrong with the intercom. But it takes longer to walk back sarcasm than it does to go with the flow. So he favors her with the charisma-laden smile that invariably makes her flee. “Thanks, Sasha. You always have my back.”

Very softly, she squeaks before scurrying out the door. He gathers his materials with a sigh and squares his shoulders. “When the going gets tough, man up,” he murmurs, sage advice from the world’s most efficient mother. Then heads off to beard a bunch of one-percent neoliberal globalists, in their virtual-conference-room den.

XXXXX

It’s almost two hours later when he makes it out of the holo-conference salon, feeling suspiciously like he’s been drawn and quartered. Ducks into the men’s room so he can slump and rub his eyes, and lets cautious optimism that he’s forestalled disaster take hold.

On his wrist, his watch message-light flashes. When he flicks off the silencer, the counter ticks up to fourteen. He’s just begun to page through when it shrilly rings, and ‘Mac—Home’ appears on-screen. Thank God. He must have left six messages yesterday, all of which went ignored.

“Hey, Mac,” he says tiredly, clicking ‘enable’. “I was just about to circle back to…”

But it’s his sister’s accusing face that appears above the plate, shouting, “HA!” loud enough to make him glance around reflexively.

“I knew it!” she says, as he hastily ducks into the hall and power-walks to his office. “You WERE avoiding my calls!”

“Of course n…” he tries, in his most soothing tone, slamming the door behind and throwing the lock, but naturally she talks right over him.

“Don’t even waste my time protesting, TONY, I’ve got bigger problems. Turns out Atreon’s playing a shady game, and Mac finally dug up leads. So climb in your fancy hover car and get over to her place pronto, before I’m forced to send out the Marines.”

_Of course_ , he thinks, brutally suppressing the urge to bury his face in his hands _. Of COURSE Mom and Dad would involve themselves with not just a time travel company but a SKETCHY one, then screw the ethics-challenged opportunists._

“Give me ten.” He spills electronics across the desk with a clatter, patting his pockets to find his car fob. “And PLEASE ask Mac to lock up that bird. I’m not replacing yet another suit.”

“I hope you’re wearing Armani and it SHITS on you,” she snaps, and hangs up. Dom sighs, head falling back against the door with a thunk. At which point his phone rings again, because that’s just the kind of day he’s having.

“Hey Kim.” He switches the thing back on, and can’t help but smile as her delicate face fills the screen. She’s all cheekbones, plus dramatic eyebrows framing almond-shaped dark eyes, and her mouth holds a sly, resting curve to which he’s addicted. “I don’t suppose you’re in the neighborhood with a baseball bat? Maybe you could knock me out and end my suffering?”

“That bad?” He can hear clacking in the background as she multitask-types—Kim’s never content with one job when she could be managing three. “You gave the speech we practiced, right? Because it’s brilliant. Anyone who doubts solar surfacing will fix your woes lives in some long-gone fossil-fuel past.”

“Now, see, why can’t YOU be on the board?” He pushes off the door and swings it open, spinning sideways without breaking stride to retina-lock. “You’re smart, reasonable and not obsessed with micromanaging, which would make working for others drastically less nightmarish. Sometimes I wish I HAD accepted family startup funds.”

“But then you wouldn’t be a self-made man,” she purrs, and his smile grows because Kim always understands. “Which, honestly, is SUCH a turn-on. Now quit fretting, and give it to me straight. Are you still in business?”

“For the moment,” he says, on a sigh. Takes the stairs to the roof, because exercise is supposed to lessen stress. “I turned on the old Echolls charm, which never disappoints. But there’s disaster brewing on multiple fronts, and babe…”

“Let me guess…we’re postponing dinner?” The clacking stops, and her expression grows uncomfortably focused. “Is this why you’ve avoided a callback all day? Don’t tell me your mom’s made up another lame excuse?”

“Not exactly.” He emerges into late-afternoon sunlight, loops a finger through the pocketed fob. “She’s less reluctant this time and more…unavoidably detained. I was supposed to be at the compound hours ago to exhaustively discuss where and why; my sister’s been calling every ten minutes as her hysteria mounts. Don’t hate me for bringing drama again?”

“Ah, but it’s never your drama.” Her expressive brows arch, expressively, and she blows him a kiss. “Go handle everything, I know you can, and call me when you’re done. I have to finish this brief and write another anyway. We’ll order those dumplings you like when you get home, watch a vid in our pajamas. I’ll even let you give me a backrub, since you live for that nurturing shit.”

He laughs, beeping his car open, and the doors spread skyward to admit him.  “I look forward to all of the above.”

“Good answer,” she says, with the husky laugh that’s fascinated him since the first time he heard it, and hangs up. He climbs beneath the car’s protective wing, gives the steering wheel a pat as the doors slide closed.

It’s a beautiful machine, top of the line; leather interior, faux-wood dash inlaid with mother-of-pearl. This hover car was Dom’s reward to himself for closing the Endicott deal, which should have kept Greenco in the black for years. And would have, if two of his biggest investors hadn’t invested in other companies badly…then started demanding profit margins beyond human ability to achieve.

Dom retina-scans the ignition and tugs his harness closed as the car taxis the roof runway; pages through the nav computer for Mac’s coordinates. Sighs pleasure as it lifts off and begins its climb, a smooth parabola to the ground-to-air-vehicle minimum, just past skyscrapers’ tops. He doesn’t agree with his father on much—wild-hair recklessness and grand romance aren’t his style. But he understands how Pop must feel in the cockpit of a plane. What prompts him to fly higher and faster each time, what keeps him coming back when the job gets hairy.

All the problems Dom left below seem like ants from this height. Insignificant, laughable. And he’s blissfully alone, untethered.

For this one moment, flying free.

XXXXX

Mac Mackenzie’s been tight with his parents longer than Dom’s been alive. By the time he was old enough to form memories, she turned up regularly in Christmas photos and dispensed unconventional advice. Rumor has it she was a computer whiz in her younger days; but he knows her solely as the futurist who predicted the water crisis while, as his father puts it, “Congress sat around like morons quoting Marie Antoinette.” Mac hunkered down to invent the cheap desalinator that saved the nation’s bacon, and paired her patent with his parents’ seed money to make a freaking mint…then promptly invested the proceeds in quantum computing. Ever since, she’s done whatever the hell she wants, because she’s rich enough to buy the Eastern Seaboard.

She’s a quicksilver presence in his life, bringing souvenirs as birthday gifts from far-flung foreign destinations--then holing up to write predictive holobooks in the compound his dad built. For fun, she plays the stock market with her equally-anarchist partner Max, and runs an animal sanctuary of dubious legality.

Usually there are goats wandering the yard, courtesy of same; but Leilani must have warned Mac about his car, because the wide, xeriscaped front lawn is empty. He checks infrared to be sure, then opts to land inside the gate, rolling gently down the palm-lined approach to the island-style main building.

The beds ringing the white house overflow with both native plants and coastal newcomers, electric-pink bougainvilleas and ocotillos looming over mariposa lilies and poppies. The hot breeze shudders through his hair and shirt, pungent with ocean, manure and sage; the clouds have gone tequila-sunrise orange as evening prepares to fall.

Dom doesn’t bother ringing the bell, just finger-waves at the camera over the purple-painted door. In seconds he hears steps, and his barefoot, wild-haired sister swings it wide.

“Finally!” She flings up theatrical hands. Like he’s just returned from Timbuktu, and not a standard workday. “We’re in the atrium. The birds freaked out when Mac left them alone, and the hydraulics that operate the roof cover are broken. She says there’s a storm coming--they can always tell, apparently, like they sense the drop in barometric pressure.”

Leilani spins on this comment and leads him through the den, blue-batik hippie dress flaring around her legs. His sister never waited, when he was a foot shorter and had to hustle to keep up, and she doesn’t wait now--but he’s long past the point where he’ll act fazed. “Was I talking to myself when I made a bird-related request on the phone?” he muses, not expecting an answer. “Guess it’s a good thing I left my jacket in the car.”

“Hey, show some consideration for my requests and I’ll take yours under consideration.” She flings the kind of pungent glance backwards at which the emo half of his family excels. “Mac and I worked ALL day to unravel this mess, and you helped how much? NONE.”

“Leilani, it took you a week and a manual to figure out your wrist phone. If anybody’s scanning the web for patent-protected data, I HIGHLY doubt it’s you.”

“Oh har-de-har.” She throws in more sarcasm than those four syllables should hold, as she shoves into the atrium at the core of Mac’s house. The glazed roof is, as advertised, uncovered; shades of sunset filter in, prismatic, tinting raised beds of herbs and trees. Brightly-colored (and bad-tempered) tropical birds flit between branches, calling. And at a low table near the holo-waterfall sits Mac, typing furiously at a quantum machine.

She unfolds when she sees them, brushing dirt from shapeless taupe linen, and calls, “Peanut, shut that door! If Rufus makes a break for it, I’ll be chasing him around the house for hours!”

“On it!” Leilani’s tone, he notes, is much nicer when she’s not speaking to him. He elects not to say so, instead enfolding his godmother in a gentle hug.

“Hard day?” Mac asks, sympathetic, and Dom shrugs, both appreciating the solicitude and glad she won’t press. She pats his cheek. “I wish I could tell you it wasn’t about to get worse; but looks like we’ve got quite a mystery on our hands.”

“Wonderful,” he says. “And THANK you for breaking the news calmly. Leilani said you’ve unearthed actual facts?”

“Sit.” Mac tosses him an all-weather pillow in deference to his expensive slacks. He does as instructed, grimacing when the women fold carelessly onto the ground. Suspiciously eyes Rufus the raven, who’s begun circling overhead.

“Okay, cold, hard data first.” Mac types some more and squints, light through the dome gilding her short salt-and-pepper hair. “We have video of your parents leaving their house at 11:42 day before yesterday, courtesy of their personal security cam. And we have sat photos of their car in the Atreon lot at 2:00 and 5:00, which fits with the story the Sales VP told.”

Dom nods, and she continues. “Their Porsche remained there until sometime between 5:00 and 8:00, consistent with the end of the business day. There are no sat photos of them leaving, but it was driven to a location in the suburbs according to the GPS tracker. After which it disappeared entirely from the system at 2:00 a.m. So that right there sets off alarm bells.”

“Mom and Dad would NEVER disable the tracker,” Leilani maintains. Dom takes leave to doubt this, but Mac nods agreement.

“Right, because they know I’d make their lives miserable. And your average Joe wouldn’t realize the car HAD a tracker, let alone own the tools to turn it off. So we’re looking at a professional thief—which is possible, it’s an expensive machine—or someone who wants them to vanish.”

“I still don’t believe ‘stumbled across gun runners at Circle K’ is out of the question,” Dom mutters, but his sister shoots him a look that shuts him up.

“Purple Pig’s the business at this address…but your folks DO have a knack for finding trouble.” Mac shrugs. “I scanned the coordinates with Google Earth, it’s a restaurant/bar in a converted mall. The Porsche appears in snaps at eight and eleven, but it’s gone at three, which confirms tracking data. Then I hacked the security feed of the parking lot, and this part’s interesting—the car was parked so it’s not visible from either overlapping cam. That COULD mean it was left in a hand-off site--like, thieves map all the blind spots in public monitoring systems—from whence a distributor could retrieve it to strip or sell. There aren’t photos of it in motion, either, which means someone knows when sats pass over Bay City. We’re dealing with a sophisticated operator. Which, as Dominic hinted, DOES describe your mother.”

Dom winks at his sister, who favors him with a death glare. Mac shakes her head at both of them. “So I watched video of all entrances and exits to the restaurant,” she continues, pointedly, “and your parents never appeared. If they DID leave the car there, it wasn’t due to a hankering for pork.”

“Next,” she continues, “I checked wrist phones for activity after the close of business at Atreon, and this is where I hit pay dirt. Both their watches are off the grid, which means they’ve either been destroyed or taken out of range, possibly by time-traveling. But at 2:24 PM, Logan took surreptitious photos like the sneak he is, and uplinked them straight to the Echolls cloud.”

She hands Dom a compact reader and he speed-scans a contract in the densest of legalese, which absolves Atreon of responsibility for tech malfunctions. He sighs, any remaining doubt of their whereabouts evaporating, and sets it on the table.

“So there’s a specific date in this paperwork to which they likely multiverse-traveled.” Mac points, not without compassion. “And I can’t find photographic evidence of them leaving Atreon—although to be fair, the company’s lot cams aren’t web-connected. So I think we should operate under the assumption that Peanut’s anonymous caller was on the level.”

 “And THIS is how I helped,” Leilani tells him, with a self-satisfied smirk. “Mac sent me to Atreon in mom’s tracker-free car wearing a wig, to make sure exterior cams EXISTED. Which they do. But to collect their video, we’ll have to infiltrate the security room…and Atreon would likely object.”

Dom snorts, and Mac says, “Exactly. Why tip our hand advertising an investigation? While Leilani was gone, I DID complete a deep dive through publicly-available data, and compiled a list of known employees. One of these guys is likely our caller. I found some interesting information about Atreon’s tech, too; the details are physics-heavy, but suffice it to say--if Logan and Veronica ARE fugitives in time, I’ve confirmed there’s a way to track them.”

“Details, please,” Dom says, and holds up a hand to stop his sister from protesting. “Hey, their lives may be at risk. I’d like to stay fully informed.”

“Multiverse travelers have to protect against drift,” Mac explains, with a quick, decisive nod. Shushes Rufus as he lands on a nearby branch and begins to whistle the Macarena. “Very short visits are mandatory to avoid it, when traveling in space-time and not just time or space. But tracking paired particles over a long period requires a linkage system, with relays that communicate across the drift. That data’s stored in the corporate servers, so anybody with access can get to the base unit in one jump; then determine the reality from there where your folks have, by now, drifted, and transmit the details back.”

“But the guy said…” Leiliani hesitates. “He told me they could only be followed if they didn’t remove their locators. And I said Mom probably crushed ‘em first thing, because she didn’t want to be found.”

“Logan knows better.” Mac waves a dismissive hand. “They’re together, and he wouldn’t let her, so don’t borrow trouble. Our most immediate problem is Atreon’s lack of web connectivity—which is extremely untrusting, but understandable since trillions are at stake. We need to get physically inside the facility to access their computers. And I think our mysterious caller is the most likely person to help us do so.”

“Let’s see the list.” Dom extends a hand, and Mac points at the reading pad. He flips through the contents, then studies names, frowning. “Sixteen people?”

“There are twenty-three employees, but seven are female,” Mac says. “I’m in the process of analyzing personal phone records, on the off-chance he was dumb enough to use his own wristwatch. Most of these guys are Ivy League or career military, though, so odds are low.”

“He had a Deep South accent,” Leilani offers. “And he called me ma’am…like, consistently. I’d focus on the military men from Rednecksville, because hot-shot execs are never polite.”

She glances pointedly at Dom, who makes a face, but Mac appropriates the pad without commenting. “Upper echelons wouldn’t be cut out of the decision-making process, either,” she mutters. “Nor would they care about exclusion from the retrieval team, so I think you’re right. Aaaand…adjusting for those parameters leaves two. Give me a few minutes to track them down--find out if they were at Atreon at the same time as your parents.”

Returning to the quantum machine, she resumes furiously typing. Dom hunches as Rufus begins to circle, and with a flutter of ebony wings, lands on his shoulder. “Goddamn it,” he says tiredly, as the bird rubs its skull against his cheek. “No I DON’T love you back. You shit on a thousand-dollar sport coat. You’re a MENACE.”

“Aw, that’s just his way of making friends.” Leilani holds out an arm which the bird ignores. It sidles closer, curving the weight of its whole body into Dom’s neck, and digs in razor-sharp claws. He doesn’t have to look to know fabric’s ripped, and suppresses another sigh.

“Got it,” Mac says sharply, making Rufus startle and grip harder. Dom winces. “Alonso Stanton, former Marine Recon, resigned commission after his fourth consecutive deployment. He left the facility at 6:12 p.m., stopped at a liquor store at 6:27, then headed home for the night. The store camera shows him with a liquid-gel bandage on the back of his neck, which is how chemical burns are treated.”

“Like from a hypo spray?” Dom mutters, as the hallmarks of Mom’s handiwork become clear. “That tears it, she had the whole thing planned.”

“Can you check Stanton’s wrist phone GPS for the last two weeks?” Leilani asks, clearly in detective mode. She always did take those games she played with Grandpa too seriously, even when she was old enough to know better. “See if he’s got behavior patterns we could exploit?”

Mac presses a few buttons. “He spends a lot of time at the Lost Souls bar five blocks from his apartment,” she says. “Mostly walks there, could be he wants freedom to get drunker? Anyway, based on his pay grade he might not have access to IP, but surely his job involves the multiverse machine. I could probably hack in straight from the control panel.”

“So we find him, verify he’s the person who spilled the beans, and persuade him to get us inside.” Leilani snap her fingers, eyes gleaming as she anticipates mayhem. “Piece of cake.”

Dom folds his arms, because stealing from a business which can disappear people into alternate universes, does not sound, to him, like a cinch. He says as much, out of a sense of duty, but Mac just shrugs.

“We sneak in, plant a back-door in the system, and immediately flee.” She sounds just as blithe and excited as his twenty-years-younger sister. “The caller obviously wants very much to retrieve your parents. Once we know where they are, I’m sure he’ll volunteer. Really, it’s no sweat. I’ve learned from the best—Veronica Mars—and I can do this job with almost no fuss, T…Dominic.”

Dom gives in finally and sighs his fill, and Leilani responds by laughing at him. “Onwards and upwards,” she says with patent unconcern for his reservations, hopping to her feet. “Literally in this case, because we’re taking your car.”

“Nevermore,” Rufus murmurs, directly into Dom’s ear; and honestly, he echoes the sentiment.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the fabulous CMackenzie for her formidable amount of Navy knowledge and excellent beta skills.


End file.
